Key Features of Personal Development

The literature that is most aligned with this study’s theoretical framework is the work of Senge (2006). According to Senge (2006), as individuals engage with their professional lives, they should try to be and do their best in every situation, and not try to be perfect, for themselves, their team and their organisation. However, this does not mean being perfect, as striving for perfection can be seen to be counter-productive to personal development in that, for individuals to be their best, they need to give their full attention to who they are, what they are thinking and to whatever activity they have to engage with. Striving for perfection can be counter-productive as the person could exert too much pressure and judgement on themselves with every task they engage in. Doing their best also means that individuals strive to be fully aware, active and engaged in every situation they find themselves in. In order to be and do their best, Senge (2006) argues that individuals need to be regularly encouraged and enabled within their organisations to engage with the following core disciplines: personal mastery, mental models, shared vision and team learning. For the purpose of this section of the study, only personal mastery and mental models are highlighted below.

5.2.4.1. Personal mastery

Personal mastery refers to personal growth as a lifelong interactive learning process that is grounded in personal competencies and skills. The competencies include self-awareness, self- confidence, self-respect, self-discipline, self-reflection and self-motivation. These competencies can influence how individuals think and feel when engaging with people and situations and can influence how they behave towards people and situations. Personal mastery is a lifelong learning process which enables competencies and skills to evolve. With self-reflection, competencies can be adjusted, revised and renewed to best deal with people and situations. When personal mastery becomes a daily discipline, it can become integrated into one’s life. Personal mastery can also be used to clarify what is important and to continually learn how to see current realities more clearly (Senge, 2006). Brown (2012) suggests using a framework to assist individuals to develop their personal competencies and skills during a personal development process to simultaneously address their vulnerabilities, as illustrated in Table 5.5 below.

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Table 5.5 Developing personal competencies and skills (Brown, 2012)

Individual thinking/behaviour before developing and using personal competencies

Self-awareness, self-confidence, self-respect, self- discipline, self-reflection and self-motivation.

Individual thinking/behaviour after developing and using personal competencies

Self-awareness, self-confidence, self-respect, self- discipline, self-reflection and self-motivation.

I do not know. I need help.

Do I have to try this? It is important to me to try this.

It did not work. It did not work – so what can I learn from it? I do not know how to do it. This is what I need to do it.

I feel incompetent. I would like some feedback.

Can you tell me what to do? What can I do better next time?

How do I do this? Can you teach me how to do this?

It was not my fault. I accept responsibility for my actions.

I am sorry. How do we move on from this?

Thank you. That means a lot to me.

Table 5.5 above illustrates how individuals can think and behave before and after developing and using personal competencies and skills, including self-awareness, self-confidence, self-respect, self-discipline, self-reflection and self-motivation. If individuals’ vulnerabilities of confidence, fears and anxieties are addressed in a personal development process, they are more likely to begin to review and adjust how they think about and behave towards people and situations. It illustrates how leadership and management can begin to engage individuals in their organisations with personal development, in particular regarding communication. Developing individuals’ personal competencies and skills can empower them while engaging in a change process.

According to Brown (2012), “this framework’s purpose is to acknowledge and personalise experiential learning, so that leaders can better know and understand themselves as individuals and those they lead in order to personalise practices” (p. 204).

Using this framework aims to first understand how to engage with individual’s vulnerabilities including having conversations that address their vulnerabilities. By

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addressing individual’s vulnerabilities gives people a chance to glimpse into what they are capable of doing with and through regular support. Addressing an individual’s vulnerabilities enables individuals to better understand the shared vision of the organisation and thereby begin to enable them to believe in the shared vision. This emphasises the importance of paying attention to the personal needs of individuals. (Brown, 2012, p. 205)

5.2.4.2. Mental models

Mental models determine how individuals observe, think about, feel about and make sense of the world. This entails how individuals observe, think about, feel about and behave with people and situations. Mental models are influenced by individuals’ levels of development of their competencies and skills, as indicated in section 5.2.4.2. Mental models can also be influenced positively or negatively by the people and situations to which individuals are exposed. How individuals think and feel about people and situations can determine the actions and behaviour they will display. As mentioned earlier in the thesis, mental models are powerful in affecting how individuals think and what they do. All individuals observe people and situations differently, and think differently about what they observe, feel differently about what they observe and respond differently to what they observe. Mental models are therefore influenced by what individuals observe, think and feel, and by outside influences. This means that mental models can be reviewed, adjusted, revised and renewed according to the people and situations to which individuals are exposed. This means that individuals can change the way they observe, think, feel, and respond to people and situations to grow and develop personally.

Senge (2006) goes further to suggest that the two core disciplines of personal mastery and mental models can be strengthened if individuals operate with the awareness that they are part of a system. An awareness of systems thinking is important as no individual can operate effectively in isolation from a bigger system. In this study, the individual SMT member is part of a system that includes the SMT, school, school community, circuit, district, province and national education department. Senge (2006) explains that systems thinking is a particular way of seeing and thinking that shapes individuals’ understanding of how the world in which they operate functions, thinking in terms of interconnectedness, interdependence, interlinked contexts and inter-relationships. It involves all the transactional processes involved in the organisation in

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which individuals find themselves. Individuals acknowledge that they are part of a system and they operate for the improvement of the whole, not only of the self. They understand that all parts of the whole are equally important and interdependent (Senge, 2006).

As individuals are provided with opportunities to continuously develop their personal competencies and skills, and to review and revise their mental models within systems thinking, they can be enabled to display personal agency more competently. This means that individuals are empowered to better engage with their fears and anxieties (Senge, 2006). If personal vulnerabilities like confidence, fear and anxieties are not acknowledged and addressed, even the most competent individual will feel insecure (Brown, 2012).

5.2.4.3. Foster personal agency

The purpose of developing personal agency includes building individuals’ self-awareness, self- confidence, self-belief and self-respect that need to be displayed by all SMTs in order to develop the required policy knowledge, skills, values and attitudes (Haber-Curran et al., 2015). The fostering of personal agency applies to addressing the sort of complex ‘people issues’ that are at the heart of enabling or undermining personal development (Senge, 2006). Examples of barriers to the development of personal agency include poor self-esteem, hopelessness, low expectations and the absence of agency (Kariem, Langhan, & Velensky, 2012).

Fostering personal agency involves engaging individuals in processes to enable them to acknowledge, develop and use their personal competencies and skills, as illustrated in Table 5.5 above. According to Senge (2006), fostering personal agency becomes essential when no personal development is offered or even acknowledged as being important. Fostering the development of personal agency becomes necessary when individuals are expected to know and understand new practices, operate using unfamiliar practices, held accountable for roles and responsibilities they do not understand but have to implement, and have to support others with regards to unfamiliar practices.

Archer (2007), Hibbert (2013) and Lazarus (1988) argue that developing personal agency is only enabling when it helps people to understand what they can do and that things can be done differently. These authors suggest that change can best be achieved through practically engaging

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people regularly in personal agency activities, such as facing their fears together to deal with their challenges in capacity building processes, as discussed below.

5.2.4.4. Capacity building

Capacity building involves providing learning opportunities for individuals to engage with their personal issues of concern (Davidoff et al., 2014). Personal issues of concern need to be engaged with in varied formats to enable individuals to acknowledge, know and understand their issues of concern so as to operate as optimally as their context allows (Kariem et al., 2012). Constant change can create misunderstandings, stress, conflict and mistrust if individuals’ capacity to engage and manage the expected change is not supported. Flexibility is therefore a key factor in capacity building programmes and needs to take into account and adapt to unexpected or unplanned changes (Kariem et al., 2012). “There can, however never be an exact time limit on how much time individuals need to take care of their personal development needs, as each individual is different and develops at a different pace” (Davidoff et al., 2014, p. 191). Davidoff et al. (2014) further state that “individuals in schools bring their own personal realities into their organisations, so it is important to acknowledge the link between the personal and professional realities and the amount of time needed for development” (p. 191).

Individuals’ realities shape the ways in which they interact with their colleagues and situations, how they deal with conflict and how they respond to pressure. The less, individuals understand themselves, the less likely they will be to respond openly to those with whom they interact. Capacity building programmes therefore also need to pay attention to individuals’ limitations and include opportunities to address these limitations, in order to enhance personal development so that individuals are able to reach a point of operating independently within their teams (Kariem et al., 2012). Davidoff et al. (2014) conclude that capacity building programmes should include opportunities for individuals to understand themselves at a deeper level, to become familiar with both their positive and negative emotions. If emotions remain unresolved, they can influence how individuals interact with others at the school. Capacity building is therefore vital for individuals, especially during a time of change, to assist them to deal with both personal and interpersonal dynamics which surface when people engage with each other, as discussed below.

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5.2.4.5. Personal and interpersonal dynamics

Personal and interpersonal dynamics involve the manner in which individuals manifest what they think and feel about the people and situations they encounter through their communication and behaviour. Personal and interpersonal dynamics often emerge when fears regarding personal competency, especially communication, vulnerabilities, values and power, need to be addressed (Brown, 2012). Personal and interpersonal dynamics highlight the vital need for developing respect for oneself and others (Moolla, 2011).

According to Davidoff et al. (2014), in a social setting like a school, certain informal patterns of relationships, behaviour and dynamics establish themselves and become part of the culture of the school. The most common example is the formation of cliques, which is a natural process with dynamics that are mostly unconscious. This means that individuals are loyal to the clique and not necessarily to what the clique sometimes believes in or is doing at a certain time. Other interpersonal dynamics include gender, race and age, together with using particular modes of interacting and communicating, like technology versus paper for meetings. All these modes of interacting and communicating are important, but can also create stereotypes and prejudices which, if left unchecked or unattended, can create interpersonal dysfunction at a school. At schools, professional jealousy can be one of the most disruptive interpersonal dynamics which impedes professional development. Energetic, innovative and creative individuals have to work harder to hold their own and not succumb to the pressure of their colleagues who choose to settle for mediocre professional practices and behaviours (Kariem et al., 2012).

Paying attention to the personal needs of individuals is highlighted in some of the policies reviewed for this study, as indicated below.