Leading Secondary School Teachers For Organizational Learning A Comparative Case Study Of Government And Private Schools In Addis Ababa Ethiopia

School leadership is not merely getting hold of the status, but it is having dependable theoretical andrnpractical attributes the status demands. In order to fulfill the demands of leadership, it is normal tornchallenge followers in scholarly ways and to be challenged by followers for the good of the organization.rnThis is one possible way of differentiating a leader from a manager. Thus, the study was targeted tornexplore how the actual school principals’ actions enhanced/discouraged the commitment of teachers tornorganizational learning in the selected schools. The study was initiated because of two basic reasons.rnThe primary reason was that lack of research evidence’ of how leadership actions and competenciesrninspire teachers for organizational learning. Second, although leadership actions are decisive forrnschools’ success, the school principals’ roles as a leader were not recognized by the society. In a similarrnway, management functions are more credited than leadership roles by the actors themselves inrnEthiopia. Qualitative case study was used as a research design and semi- structured interview,rnobservation, and document analysis were the data gathering tools. The findings show that the schoolrnprincipals and teachers have similar perception of the importance of organizational learning. Althoughrnthey have similar insights about the concept and importance of organizational learning; itsrnimplementation was not the same in the studied government and private secondary schools. The majorrnfinding of the study reveals that the government school principal was perceived by teachers as ineffectivernin leading OL. They felt that CPD as one of the strategies for organizational learning is top-down by itsrndesign and it does not match to the realities in the school. The school principal used transactionalrnleadership approach to achieve the school’s goals and applied his legitimate power in leading thernteachers for work place learning. The teachers complained that their ideas were not given attention andrnnot valued. Senior teachers considered themselves as master minds of the school because of their longrnyears teaching experience and they discouraged novice teachers when they come up with new ideas.rnSense of "we" and "they" was deep-rooted between the school management and teachers. A culture ofrnworking together was not well developed; teachers blame the school administration and the schoolrnadministration accuses the teachers. On the contrary, leadership actions in the private school wererntransformative. The school principal had shown adequate potential to motivate and persuade thernteachers to learn new things and he had been willing to listen to teachers' voices, to read teachers'rninterests and needs. He served as a role- model by making himself life-long leader-learner in hisrnretirement ages, valued collective endeavors and an individual’s contributions. The teachers were alsornopen to accept new ideas, professional comments and they visited each other’s classrooms and triedrntogether new pedagogical arts. At the institution level new ideas were welcomed regardless of powerrnand position. The teachers solved the school problems together, valued collective endeavors and anrnindividual’s contributions, visited each other’s’ classrooms and tried together new pedagogicalrnpractices.rnKey words: leadership, transformational leadership, organizational learning, and learning culture

Get Full Work

Report copyright infringement or plagiarism