Role of principals' leadership styles in promoting grade-12 learner performance in Western Cape township high schools

Abstract

This study investigated the roles of principals' leadership styles in improving grade-12 learner performance in high-performing quintile 1-3 schools in impoverished Western Cape townships, South Africa. Despite facing numerous socio-economic issues, these schools have sustained an average grade-12 pass rate of 70% or above over the past five years. This qualitative multi-case study used a purposive sample of eight principals from purposefully selected schools. Semi-structured, open-ended interviews and documents in the form of minutes of meetings were used to collect data on the roles of principals' leadership styles in improving grade-12 learner performance. Data was analysed using colour-coding and emergent themes. The interviews focused on the challenges that mitigated against grade-12 learners' high performance, participants' leadership styles, and the roles that their leadership styles played in improving grade-12 learner performance. The results revealed three factors that mitigated against high grade-12 learner performance. Results also demonstrated that the decisions and actions participants took to mitigate the challenges affecting grade-12 learner performance hinged on and were heavily influenced by their leadership styles. Moreover, it was found that participants exhibited different leadership styles and that whereas some participants' styles were constant, representing a uniform approach to mitigating the challenges they encountered, other participants' styles were eclectic, suggesting that the ways in which they mitigated the challenges differed according to those styles. There was no style that could be defined as having played a better role than the other, although it was possible that for some schools, high learner performance could have happened by chance rather than by design. These results have serious implications for the role that principals' leadership styles play in schools in general, but in impoverished schools specifically, as they show that if matched with a clear mission and vision, schools can go a long way in improving learner performance.