CHAPTER ONE OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY - …

1 1 CHAPTER ONEOVERVIEW OF THE AIM OF THIS CHAPTERP resently, in South Africa, transformation in education is prevalent andessential. Educators, at all levels within the education system, as keycontributors to transformation of education, have a crucial role to challenges need to be addressed, which include, amongstothers, the need for effective educational management and leadership, andthe delivery of quality teaching and learning in all the educational manager, the process of reconstruction and changeendows a leadership challenge, and also places the responsibility ofdemanding, stimulating, and much needed management performance tasks,on the shoulders of the manager.

2 In the struggle towards school effectivenessand the promotion of quality teaching and learning. Effective systems andprocesses of management, coupled by effective leadership become vital andcritical to school effectiveness, school improvement and the delivery of qualityteaching and process of learning about educational management, and especially aboutbecoming effective managers, is crucial to all educational institutions. Thisstudy therefore aims to focus on management and leadership, as key areas ineducational transformation, which contribute to quality teaching and research, specifically, aims to consider the management tasks of theSouth African educator in a leadership position, for effective management,towards the promotion of quality teaching and learning in one will introduce the nature of management and leadership asinterrelated and interdependent concepts.

3 The concept management and themanagement tasks needed for effective management will also be introduced2in CHAPTER one, and will be further explored, in detail, in CHAPTER two, in anattempt to understand how the effective execution of management taskscontribute to the promotion of quality teaching and learning in the educational manager, for this STUDY , holds a leadership positionwithin the educational organisation of the Gauteng Department of Education(GDE), aspects of the Gauteng Department of Education, and its organisingprinciples and organisational structure will be focused on. In addition, thefunctions, purpose and responsibilities expected of this educational managerand leader, as required by the GDE, will also be introduced in CHAPTER one,and will be provided for in greater detail, in CHAPTER two.

4 The managementtasks, including the leadership, of this educational manager, will also befocused on and integrated throughout the CHAPTER one, the problem statement and the aims of the STUDY areprovided for. The research design and methodology are also explored in anintroductory AN INTRODUCTION TO THE THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIPB ecause this STUDY will not consider management in isolation of leadership,and views the concepts of management and leadership as not necessarily thesame, but as not mutually exclusive, it becomes important at this juncture toimmediately consider ideas on management and leadership, as well as theinterrelated nature of these concepts: According to Squelch & Lemmer (1994: 9), Management is theprocess of planning, organising, motivating and guiding.

5 Leadership ismore a process of encouraging and influencing people to cooperate inachieving goals that are perceived to be mutually satisfying . According to Van der Westhuisen (1990: 195), management implies ajob, a profession or a calling , and leadership is a characteristic of amanager .3 In the Unisa Educational Management Guide (ONB451-F: 2), the linkbetween management and leadership is emphasised in the followingstatement: Management is about the acknowledgement of knowledge,skills and competencies that managers need, to offer high qualityleadership for organisational effectiveness . It further indicates that management is therefore an interactive and interdependent processwhere effective managers and effective leaders are surrounded byeffective followers and collaborators who will perform their managingtasks effectively.

6 The ideas, as provided above, allow for the assumption that management andleadership are linked. They imply a dependency, an interrelationship andintegration between these concepts. They suggest that a relationship existsbetween management and leadership, in that leadership is shown to lendsupport to addition to these ideas, Williams (as quoted in Squelch & Lemmer, 1994:11) offers an illustration that suggests a relationship between leadership andmanagement. It provides for an interrelatedness of these two concepts. Thisillustration has been captured below, in FIGURE 1:FIGURE 1: SUGGESTIVE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIPThe above illustration (FIGURE 1) infers that for the leader and manager,management and leadership will overlap and merge too.

7 For effectivemanagement, leadership thus becomes a requirement. This also suggests thateffective management requires leadership as an essential part ofmanagement. In addition, the illustration infers that for the leader andmanager, management together with leadership, will be crucial for theeffective functioning of an , it is important to note that leadership is frequently seen as anaspect of management (Van Deventer & Kruger, 2003: 68), as it is apparenttoo, that the achievement of organisational goals and objectives throughleadership, is of this relationship between management and leadership, it may beassumed that managers will need to portray effective management, includingeffective leadership, to be effective as managers.

8 The link between theconcepts is evident, and hence, the concepts will be seen as complementaryto each other in the STUDY , and thus management, together with leadership,will be viewed as being essential to effective and Lazarus (1997: 157) aptly sum up the close relationship betweenmanagement and leadership as follows: Part of the skill of leadership and management is about ensuring thateveryone is on board , but that once on board, people are in fact, on ajourney with direction, that they re all aware of the direction, and thatthey have all agreed that is where they would like to go .This quote also clearly indicates, that for the educational manager too, thefunctions of management and leadership need to be interrelated for theeffective management of the educational organization, towards the realizationand achievement of organizational the above discussions, it becomes apparent that educational managerswill not be able to guide colleagues towards realising the long-term vision ofthe educational institution, and towards the realization and achievement oforganizational goals, if the management functions are not there to givestructure and support.

9 Management thus needs to focus on the tasks thatshould be performed to achieve these goals. As importantly too, formanagement systems and processes to be functional, clear leadership isneeded for direction, realisation of goals and ultimately realisation of thevision of the educational , because management tasks need to be performed for the effectivemanagement of an organisation, complementary to management, and crucialof the effective manager, for effective management, will include leadershiptoo. Clearly then, management and leadership are required, and are essentialto the effective management of an INTRODUCING MANAGEMENT AND THE FOUR MANAGEMENT TASKSIn order to introduce and understand management , and the four vitalmanagement tasks for effective management, it is important to focus onvaried definitions of management.

10 Fields s (1993: 56) view of management is that Management relates tothings and equipment and the people controlling them . Horwitz s (1990: 56) ideas on management suggest the developmentof operating principles and values which create an environment forcontinuous improvement and provide the systems and resources tosupport the process . Everard and Morris s (1990: 5) view of management suggests theworking with and through individuals and groups, and other resourcesto accomplish organisational goals . Van Deventer and Kruger (2003: 65) contend that management isabout effective task execution as well as effective peoplemanagement.