Shared moral purpose

When asked whether or not moral purpose is shared across members of the SMTs and schools, research participants were overwhelmingly positive that it is shared. However, the depth of their responses was mixed because they appeared to be drawing from different discourses. Eight participants understood and used the word ‘shared’ in relation to educational leadership that is shared. This aspect is addressed under shared leadership in section 5.4.2 below. At least seven participants, of whom five were from Apple High School, derived their responses from a perspective that the word ‘shared’ means to magnify and disseminate moral purpose until it is broadly accepted by all in the school.

This is a relevant discourse to this theme.

Apple High School’s Academic Tutor claimed that “Moral purpose is shared from top management to staff.” However, it was the follow-up to this initial response which specified the extent to which moral purpose was shared at Apple High School. He reported that it is shared to “… not only academic colleagues, I’m talking about administrative colleagues, I’m talking about our ground staff colleagues, it is shared with everybody.” This universal acceptance by different stakeholders within this school paints a general picture of how each member of the school community gets to contribute towards the cultivation of moral purpose. Thus, the useful starting point for the examination of this theme was the exploration of how school management teams share their moral purpose.

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The research participants seemed to understand shared moral purpose as a compelling moral imperative that is embraced by all role players in the school. Thus, the Banana Secondary School Principal stated “It is shared because we strive from time to time to ensure that we all work towards a common goal or [moral] purpose.” Shared moral purpose is not a value that resides only in a leader but it is spread to all the people in the school through various modes. Of the utmost importance in the sharing of moral purpose are the notions of communication and delegation. Communication seems to be the most applied mode by school management teams with regard to sharing moral purpose. The Apple High School Deputy Principal A explained:

And you cannot seem to be achieving one thing as it is a common one thing if the lines of communication are closed or restricted … So our lines of communication are very open, our lines of communication here at school are very open.

The value of communication was further reinforced by the Grape High School Head of Department A who stated that “… if communication breaks down, I think the whole system will breaks down.” The Apple High School Head of Department also believes that

“To bind the teachers together, to bind the learners together, we need to be seen to be sharing the information as and when it unfolds.” The need to share this information calls for regular meetings. The Apple High School Deputy Principal A pointed out “… we effectively make use of our morning briefing to cascade information to our educators.”

She also added that every Tuesday they have SMT meetings “… just to make sure we are still on the common side or same page or same chapter of the book. So we do that more often.”

It was clear that in this morning briefing meeting that I observed in Apple High School that indeed valuable information was shared. I also observed that in these meetings every member’s input was valued; members listened to what others had to say before

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expressing a viewpoint of their own and members did not speak over or cut off other members. The nature of the meeting was such that one could easily comment on the extent to which moral purpose was driving the staff. It was in this meeting where teachers were made aware of teachers who were late or absent on the day and announcements were made about who would be standing in for them. This allocation was clearly to ensure that learners do not sit idle without anyone to attend to them.

The departmental or subject meetings emerged as other platforms where the sharing of information takes place. Referring to the departmental meeting, the Grape High School Head of Department B recounted “So it is true we are sharing and we meet almost every time to talk about the subject.” In addition to departmental meetings where discourses are centred on improving the performance of all subjects within the department, the Orange High School Head of Department A indicated that “We have got our different subject meetings.” He added that any member who has attended a subject meeting comes back and “… shares what was spoken about, discussed, decided or whatever in that subject meeting, and then it is shared with the whole department …” Therefore, regardless of whether or not moral purpose is widely manifested within the entire school community, SMTs must be unconditionally committed to ensuring that their school environment enable utilisation of various types of meetings to share moral purpose.

It is evident that during these meetings learner performance is placed at the top of the agenda. The importance of academic performance was confirmed by the Apple High School minutes of the SMT meeting, under the item grade twelve analysis of results:

10 learners failed which is disappointing but there is quality in our results.

Learners obtained distinctions in most of the subjects. The principal conveyed his appreciation and congratulations to the HODs and educators involved (Apple High School: Minutes of SMT Meeting, 16.01.2013).

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The above description provides an excellent conclusion to the examination of integrating the skill of communication within team meetings to share information around the issue of learner performance. Evident in this response is the important notion that the effectiveness of the SMT is not defined by how often the team meets, rather by the efficacy that requires the vigorous exchange of ideas, having one’s thinking challenged and having the capacity to have critical questions asked to stimulate discussion. This means that although effective communication amongst the team members must be respectful, it must also be robust to allow an exchange of ideas to drive the team towards consensus in critical issues such as learner achievement.

Delegation of duties is another notion that surfaced in the interview data that SMTs take up to share moral purpose within the schools. Peach Secondary School Head of Department A believes that moral purpose within her school’s management team is shared “through delegation of duties”. She reckons that “Sometimes when SMT members are delegated some duties, those that we feel that the educators can execute we do delegate to them. And then we monitor the educators or when they have executed such we check.” For this participant, delegation is not abdication; a manager delegating the duties should not be seen as shoving away responsibility. But effective delegation of duties is realised when the school principal is aware that the accountability for that delegated duty remains with him or her.

Although principals are officially appointed by the circuits as chief invigilators for school-based examinations, the Banana Secondary School Principal feels that for members of his SMT to embrace the moral purpose, he can even delegate this huge task with huge accountability to his deputy principal. He elaborated:

Like Monday they are starting with trial examination, so I gave the deputy principal to run that. So in this way I’m making her to be aware that she is also responsible for this, not only the principal. So this indicates that she feels that

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she is part of the school, she is part of the management team that manages the school.

All in all, participants believe that moral purpose is shared in their schools and that sharing is worthwhile as the Apple High School Deputy Principal B claimed the sharing

“… makes it easy for us because we can see that as management what the school wants is being implemented. And we see the results among the learners.” According to Peach Secondary School’s Head of Department A, the sharing of moral purpose is critical because everyone get to know that “… the kids have to pass” and she further claimed that as a result of this sharing “Even if we can close the SMT’s office the teachers will still go to class knowing that at the end of the year learners have to pass, it is their moral responsibility to see them passing.”

Clearly, the effect of shared moral purpose is that it boosts the morale of the team members and teachers become more committed to what they are doing. In the next section we will examine the effect of moral purpose on leadership approaches by exploring the extent to which the shared moral purpose enhances distributed leadership and/or teacher leadership.