Leading Change: African Conceptions of Leadership and Transformation in Higher Education

Leading Change: African conceptions of leadership and transformation in higher education in South Africa.

Paper presented at Higher Education Close Up 2, an international conference, 16-18 July 2001, Lancaster University. This conference is supported by The Society for Research into Higher Education and The Higher Education Development Centre, Lancaster University.

Dr. David I. Bell

University of Massachusetts, Amherst

525 East Pleasant Street

Amherst, Massachusetts, 01002

United States of America

Acknowledgement

I am extremely grateful to the Vice-Chancellors of the Historically Black Universities in South Africa who were willing to shared their precious time and thoughts with me. I am grateful too for their compassion and their interests and support of my research. I trust that this study brings about a deeper understanding of the challenging and courageous leadership roles that these men and women play in the critical process of leading higher education and in shaping our new democracy.

Leading Change: African conceptions of leadership and transformation in higher education in South Africa.

Abstract

During the colonial and apartheid eras, higher education played an historically strategic and insidious role in shaping South African society. Today, higher education continues to play a significant role as an agency of the state in helping to shape the social transformation process toward democracy. The current cadre of Vice-Chancellors continue to play a critical role in this process and in the light of democratic transformation and social transparency, their decisions and actions have become a matter of public scrutiny.

While current higher education policy emphasizes the phenomena of institutional and social transformation highlighting the social accountability role of higher education in the national social change process, emergent policy advocates for a change of governance from the traditionally centralized power of the Vice-Chancellery to a more equitable and participatory approach termed cooperative governance. Vice-Chancellors, particularly at Historically Black (Disadvantaged) Universities are accountable both institutionally and socially to ameliorate the process institutional and social transformation while transforming their leadership roles in, and of this process. Vice-Chancellors are both agents of transformation and targets of transformation.

In political and social spheres, the term transformation has emerged as the encompassing mantra for all democratic processes and has become a vague and rhetorical term associated with a diverse range of change processes. Understanding the phenomena of transformation and the role of leadership in higher education is critical to understanding the nexus between understanding emergent policy in understanding higher educations and the role of leadership in the national, social change process.

This study applies phenomenological phenomenographic methodology and in-depth interviews to explore and graph the tacit conceptions of the Vice-Chancellors of Historically Black Universities in South Africa. The research focuses on the phenomena of transformation, leadership and social change assuming that synergistically, Vice-Chancellors’ tacit conceptions of these phenomena will frame an African notion of Transformative Leadership in higher education.

The research findings reveal that although Vice-Chancellors share similar challenges and concerns, their conceptions are not sufficiently congruent to define a singular, homogeneous African mode of Transformative Leadership. Although higher education is conceptually located within a process of social transformation, the research preceded from the assumption that the common mode of leadership of transformation would be transformational and this was clearly not the case. Participants expressed that a single explicit mode of African leadership was not also desirable to define.

The role of VC in HBU’s in South Africa is enormously complex and challenging and the new Ministry may need to re-conceptualize the role and function of the Vice chancellor in Higher Education in South Africa min relation to the conceptual positions of institutional governance and leadership expressed in emergent higher education policy.

INTRODUCTION

Africa needs change to ensure its development. Reform in education must be the starting point towards meaningful social change, not just for the sake of change, but in order to improve the quality of human life.

Julius Nyerere, 1974

The social context of higher education in South Africa

Nyerere’s (1974) words capture an important facet of the process of decolonization that swept through Africa in the later half of the 20th century. His words also succinctly assert a deeper conception of the role that education has, and should continue to play in the social change process in post-colonial Africa. Sadly, however, most African countries continue to struggle with the legacies of colonialism that pervade the structures and systems of society and that defile the social reconstruction process. These legacies are most evident in the educational systems and structures that remain as relics of the colonizing powers. Education reform is therefore imperative and strategic to the post-colonial social and economic revival of Africa but he process of renaissance in Africa is painful. For too long, others have spoken on behalf of Africa. The process of transformation must now be determined for Africans, by Africans.

Nelson Mandela’s release from incarceration in 1990 captures a significant moment of this process. Although his legacy stands as an icon of the process of liberation and emancipation for all Africans, it also symbolizes a larger international trend, driven largely by the West and the North, toward globalization and democratization. In Africa, African democracy has emerged through bloodied struggles with oppressive political systems of governance, and in most cases, has resulted in processes of indigenous re-conceptualizing and restructuring of society and systems of governance that in some cases, do not resemble democracy as advocated by the West.

The democratic process in South Africa has brought about renewed interest in the role of education as a vehicle of the social change process and the function of leadership of the process of transformation is a critical element. The transparent nature of participatory democracy has induced a renewed and critical scrutiny of the actions of prominent political figures and leaders of the change process, not the least, prominent educational leaders and specifically, the leadership of Historically Black higher education institutions.

Makgoba, (himself a recent target of racially induced critical public and institutional scrutiny), argued that ‘higher education institutions are the only major sectors within South African society that have not given evidence before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and that they have much to answer for’ (Makgoba, 1997, p 17). Because the previous cadre of higher education leaders and administrators played a critical role in perpetuating colonial and apartheid political ideology through implementing discriminatory and repressive state policy, the current cadre of higher education leaders have a significant transformative and reparatory role to play in the transformation of South African society – through the strategic leadership of their institutions.

All higher education institutions in South Africa are, by their legislative mandate, public institutions and assets of the state, and therefore the leadership of these institutions are employees and agents of the state. Vice-Chancellors are therefore simultaneously agents of transformation, leaders of transformation and targets of transformation. This sets up tenuous relationship between the tacit and explicit goals of the state, and the personal and professional conceptions and actions of institutional leaders. It is imperative to the democratic transformation process to understand their conceptions of policy and of critical social phenomena inherent to policy, both as institutional leaders and as prominent public social figures.

As the legacies of the previous political era continue to frustrate even the noblest intent of transformers and leaders of transformation, their actions are often clouded in suspicion. In order to better understand transformation and the role of higher education in the process of facilitating change in South Africa, three critical questions arise:

How do the leaders of social and institutional transformation conceptualize the phenomenon of transformation?
How do the leaders of social and institutional transformation conceptualize the phenomenon of leadership of this critical social process?
What role should higher education institutions and their leadership play in the current social transformation process?

Providing answers to these questions and, relating these conceptions to current policy is the primary goal of this research. However, Seepe (1998), a prominent Black South African scholar, social critic and educational leader, cautions that the debate concerning the meaning of leadership in the new South Africa cannot be complete without the authentic participation of African leaders in this process. He argues that the rationale for this process is to ‘falsify the myth that Africa cannot make a meaningful contribution to universal human progress and that this process should provide both a critique of the dominant Western epistemological paradigm from an authentic, African perspective and an assertion of that which is African’ (Seepe, 1998, p v). It is therefore imperative to contextualize this study within the social context of current higher education policy and to adopted a methodology and research process that is respectful of that which is African.

Higher education policy

a. The current policy framework

The range of processes and policies directed at restructuring higher education, and specifically the most recent policy document entitled, Towards a New Higher Education Landscape: Meeting the Equity, Quality and Social Development Imperatives of South Africa in the 21st Century (July 2000), are an admirable testimony of the new Ministry of Educations’ intent to transform and rationalize higher education institutions in harmony with national processes of social transformation. These policy documents pose renewed challenges and ambiguous tensions for the process of higher education transformation, and in particular, for the leadership of higher education.

The recently appointed think-tank on higher education transformation, the National Commission on Higher Education (NCHE), use the term transformation liberally in the various position papers and policy proposals. The NCHE Policy Framework for Higher Education Transformation (1996, p.1) proposes that:

Higher education can play a pivotal role in the political, economic and cultural

development and reconstruction of South Africa. To preserve what is valuable

and to address what is defective requires transformation. The system of higher

education must be reshaped to serve a new social order, to meet pressing

national needs and to respond to a context of new realities and opportunities.

(NCHE, 1996, p.1)

Ironically, The Policy Framework for Higher Education Transformation (NCHE, 1997) asserts the term transformation liberally but does not explicitly defined or conceptually formulate it. Similarly, the concept of cooperative governance is explicitly advocated in a range of policy documents, but is also tenuously defined. Vice-Chancellors find themselves in the politically and socially contested positions of interpreting and enacting these ill-defined but critical concepts of policy. The challenge of interpreting and enacting institutional transformation policy is further exacerbated by contradictions emerging from new higher education policy (Including the Higher Education Bill of 1997) that stands in contrast to traditional modes of strong, directive leadership of Vioce-Chancellors and;

mandates a specific conceptual style of participatory institutional administration termed ‘cooperative governance’- while simultaneously requiring administrative practices and levels of accountability in accordance with global and Western institutional norms and practices including strategic planning, benchmarking, accountability and fiscal viability;
advocates ‘academic freedom, administrative autonomy and institution-level decision-making power’ - while mandating adherence to centralized ministerial decision-making and centralized policy formulation, and;
advocates for the ‘Africanization of institutions as agencies accountable for addressing pressing local comunity, social and cultural needs and acting as catalysts of broader social and political transformation’ - while urging institutions to remain globally competitive in terms of academic standards of teaching and research and these often stand in contrast to policy positions of educational access and redress of past academic imbalances.

NCHE, A Programme for the Transformation of Higher Education (1997, pp, 18-20.)

b. Cooperative governance

In South Africa, Vice-Chancellors are primarily scholars and secondarily institutional administrators. Although all Vice-Chancellors of HBU’s have extensive scholarly records, few have formal administrative qualifications or institutional leadership experience. The challenge of enacting policy and maintaining scholarly autonomy and institutional integrity is further framed by current policy pertaining to transformation and cooperative governance of higher education where the Higher Education Bill of 1997 explicitly emphasizes the term cooperative governance in preference to the term leadership.

HBU Vice-Chancellors are clearly scholarly leaders who possess significant political leadership acumen however, there is a lack of clarity of the role and function of Vice-Chancellor, specifically as this relates to the intersection of the concepts of cooperative governance and institutional leadership. The Higher Education Bill (1997, p 26) simply states, ‘The principal of a public higher education institution is responsible for the management and administration of the public higher education institution’. The National Commission on Higher Education, by contrast, broadly defines the role of institutional leader as ‘enacting the principles of cooperative governance’ (NCHE, 1996, p 4). Cooperative governance is defined as ‘an acknowledgement of the competing and complementary interests, interdependence and common goals of different role players … balancing participation with effectiveness, while sharing power, responsibility and accountability … requires negotiation of industrial relations within the framework of the labor Relations Act’ (NCHE, 1996, p 12). The outcome of this policy is that it presents a significant tension for Vice-Chancellors as they enact their challenging roles as leaders of transforming institutions while internalizing and enacting governance policy that challenges their traditional leadership power- base and styles of leadership upon which much institutional transformation is currently dependent.

c. Transformation

In South Africa, the term transformation has become synonymous with processes of democratic change and has emerged as the popular mantra for almost all social change. Transformation is used to define and validate an immense range of social and political change processes and as a result, it is fast becoming rhetorical and its semantic essence is vague. In its positive sense, transformation is used as a sweeping descriptor of positive democratic change and as an affirming descriptor of those committed to the struggle for democracy. In its antithetical form (not-transformative), it is asserted as highly politicized juxtaposition to change and a typology of all who are perceived to be unwilling to change and is used to chastise those who legitimately oppose popular political positions and policy. Not transforming or being perceived as ‘not transformative’ is touted as an indicator of resistance to the democratic change process and is equated to capitulating to the principles of apartheid and oppression. The popular assumption is that there is either rhetoric or evidence of transformation, or there is capitulation to a previous era of social oppression.

Although the term has a sweeping social application, it has no congruent semantic definition and no neutral position, and this is clearly problematic for understanding the various processes and policies that advocate transformation. The concept transformation and the process of leading change clearly needs to regain a grounded and popular semantic form that will have clarity, legitimacy and relevance to the process of social change, particularly as this relates to educations’ role in the social change process.

The voices of Black Africans have however traditionally been disaffirmed and thereby neglected from the hegemonic higher education debate. The conceptions of these significant African leaders should therefore be central to re-conceptualizing the tenets of transformation, and it is argued that the appropriate place to begin the process of conceptualizing and defining the concept of transformation is from within the system of higher education.

Research focus and tensions

a. Conflicting epistemological paradigms

While the concepts of transformation and leadership are explicitly at the heart of the movement toward a new social democracy, higher education, and in particular higher education’s leaders are a fundamental component of the process of conceptualizing and actualizing both social and institutional transformation.

The specific focus of this study places the research process and the findings, in a tenuous social and political relationship, in the light of Seepe’s argument above. Excluding the voices of Africans in favor of empirical research of transformative leadership would be a capitulation of the Western epistemological research paradigm of the other ‘looking in’. Conversely, focusing exclusively on African voices and denying the existence of the Western epistemology would be similarly skewed. This study is an attempt to mediate the tension by acknowledging the Western theory-base traditionally associated with academic research while simultaneously attempting to remain sensitive to, and affirming of the African voice. The findings of the study are therefore not discussed comparatively and in relation to Western theory, but are offered as a legitimizing alternate African perspective in the field of leadership toward an understanding of the process of leadership of transformation in higher education.

The focus of the study

This paper explores the conceptions of transformation and leadership, not as an affirmation or as an alternative to Transformational Leadership (Burns, 1978, and Bass 1981), but as a collective African perspective of the concepts of transformation and leadership that synergistically merge to form the concept, Transformative Leadership (Tierney, 1989). It is also primarily an attempt to describe and thereby authenticate one source of an African perspective of leadership and transformation, as a means of understanding the process of institutional leadership and secondarily, as a contribution to the existing theory-base of leadership and specifically higher education leadership and administration. The narrow focus of the study does not claim to represent the voices of all Africans, all Black South Africans or the views of all leaders and administrators in higher education in South Africa. It is specifically contextualized within historically Black higher education in South Africa, and the findings are therefore limited to an understanding of one socially significant group’s conceptions of transformation, leadership and the process of leading transformation.