African Educational Research Journal - Full Length Research Paper - Should school heads be leaders, managers or both? A case study of Bulawayo government secondary schools in Zimbabwe

Oct 15, 2026

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The study explores the skills required for effective leadership in government secondary schools in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. It examines whether school heads achieve effectiveness through leadership skills, management skills, or both, and how these skills influence productivity. Data were gathered from 60 respondents using document analysis, observation, interviews, and focus groups. Results show a shift from routine management to situational, visionary school management requiring stronger leadership qualities, while policy implementation remains a debated challenge.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages13

Reading Time33 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Education reform and context in Zimbabwe

Abstract

Study purpose and skill focus

Methods and data sources

Key findings and implications

African Educational Research Journal Vol. 1(2), pp. 72-84, July 2013 Full Length Research Paper Should school heads be leaders, managers or both? A case study of Bulawayo government secondary schools in Zimbabwe Lillie Beth Hadebe Zimbabwe Open University, Zimbabwe. Accepted 10 June, 2013 | ABSTRACT
The study sought to explore the type of skills needed by government secondary school heads in order for them to be effective. Hence, the study examined whether school heads could be effective if they employed either leadership skills, management skills or if they employed both skills. The main purpose of the study was to establish how any of the skills aforementioned could boost productivity in government secondary schools. The study was carried out in government secondary schools in Bulawayo. Only schools’performance at O’ level was used as a measure of academic performance of the schools. The sample was made up of 60 respondents drawn from the secondary schools, heads of schools, District officers and other key informants in the education system like BSPZ coordinators and the newly appointed secondary school inspectors. Document analysis, observation, interviews and focus group discussions were used to collect data under the following themes: leadership skills and tasks, management skills and tasks and the concepts of change, motivation, school mission and vision, community involvement and teachers’ needs to finally come out with the head’s recommended attributes. The assessment of school administration revealed transformation in the task with institutions gradually moving away from concentrating on day to day neat management tasks towards focusing on a unique, situational designed and visionary approach to school management which requires more leadership qualities. Interviews of education officers revealed that, whilst all government schools were guided by government policy, policy was not meant to kill the individual flair of heads. The focus group discussions revealed that leadership was needed in education as an answer to the dynamic and turbulent environment. The discussions revealed that with the ever changing times, it was the flexible leader who would be able to identify strategies that would take advantage of the changing environment; the strategies that would go in line with the globalization trends, who was needed by today’s school. Thus, most respondents believed that heads of schools could use leadership skills to create competitive advantage and uniqueness of schools, yet the issue of how policy could be successfully woven into heads’ plans remained debatable. The study therefore recommended that schools as business organizations needed leaders who clearly understood their role in the school production process.
Keywords: Leadership, management, school leadership and leadership tasks. | | --- | | E-mail: [lbhadebe@yahoo.co. uk. Tel:](lbhadebe@yahoo.co. uk. Tel:) 0712881744. | INTRODUCTION On April 1980, Zimbabwe gained its political independence from the British rule. Under the colonial British rule, education system was for all intents and purposes, capitalist oriented. This was a deliberate move put in place so as to promote and sustain white supremacy at the expense of black advancement, development and empowerment. The type of education was evident in the 1966 Rhodesia Front bottleneck education policy which stated that, out of the total population of African students who completed Grade 7 only 12½ percent were eligible to proceed to Academic secondary schools (F1), 37½ percent would proceed into vocational education (F2) and the remaining 50 percent were left with no provision of any form of planned formal education (Zvobgo in Mandaza, 1987) . At independence, in 1980, the new government’s first task was to break the several educational constraints placed by the capitalist government against the African child, democratizing the educational system . The achievement of the task of democra

FAQs

What skills does the study say school heads need for effectiveness?

The study investigates whether effectiveness comes from leadership skills, management skills, or both, concluding that leadership-oriented qualities are increasingly required for situational and visionary school management.

How was academic performance measured in the research?

Schools’ performance at O’ level was used as the measure of academic performance.

What did interviews and focus groups suggest about policy and leadership?

Interviews indicated that policy guides government schools without eliminating individual head “flair,” while focus groups emphasized leadership to respond to dynamic environments and changing times.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Stanford