Abstract:

Background:
During 1996, the Task Team on Educational Development in the Republic of South Africa expressed a need for a different approach to education management in South Africa. The report stated that education management must be supportive rather than directive.

Current literature suggests that servant leadership is a supportive paradigm. The implementation of the servant leadership paradigm could guide school leaders to improve the overall quality in schools, since the servant leader’s approach is radically different from the past and known leadership styles generally implemented in South African schools. Servant leadership has been described as a ‘life-giving’ leadership style in totality – and that may be exactly what our educational system needs to move forward.

The perception exists that Krugersdorp and the Afrikaans-speaking people of Krugersdorp, South Africa, are predominantly conservative by nature and in their politics and not open to change and transformation (Van Kessel, 2000:200).

Aim:
The aim of the study was to determine the perceptions of the participants (teachers) whether their principals of Afrikaans-medium public schools in Krugersdorp have responded to this call to change-direction. The perceptions of teachers regarding the practice of servant leadership characteristics, displayed by their principals, were thus evaluated.

Participants:
Due to easy accessibility and convenience, 200 participants (teachers) were randomly selected from all eight Afrikaans-medium public schools in Krugersdorp, South Africa. The majority of the teachers were female (69.5%). Most of the participants indicated that their home language was Afrikaans. Most participants were Caucasian as the research was conduct within the environment of Afrikaans-medium public schools.

Methodology:
A comparative, descriptive research design was employed to determine the perceptions of the teachers by means of a questionnaire developed by Barbuto and Wheeler (2006) of which the reliability had been piloted successfully beforehand. The five constructs relating to servant leadership – as defined by Barbuto and Wheeler (2006) were scrutinised, namely altruistic calling, emotional healing, organisational stewardship, persuasive mapping and wisdom.

Conclusion:
This study concluded that the teachers appreciate the day-to-day practice of the characteristics of wisdom, persuasive mapping and organisational stewardship by the principals of Krugersdorp Afrikaans-medium public schools. However, it was clear that the school principals’ characteristics of altruistic calling and emotional healing need mentoring and guidance. It is recommended that principals should be motivated to commit to attend workshops and also ‘learning communities’, where principals can take the liberty to share the outcomes of the workshops, positively or negatively, with their colleagues to the benefit of all educational role players and educational reform.

Keywords:

Servant leadership, Afrikaans-medium public schools in Krugersdorp, Altruistic calling, Emotional healing, Organisational stewardship, Persuasive mapping.