Assessment of Needs and Capacity of District Office Professional Staff

5b. LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT
Leadership is a generic competency that is needed by all District professional
staff. These officials are leaders in their respective subject areas, for their
respective circuits or the institutions and personnel they supervise. To lead
could be perceived as a fundamental requirement for effective functioning in
the District office. The ability to manage effectively and to support school
managers, whether as SMT or SGB members or HODs, are both essential
leadership and management requirements.
The questionnaire did not sufficiently detail a full set of options in the area of
leadership and management, but sought to highlight some aspects of the
leadership and management tasks. In this respect, it will be noted that a
relatively large percentage of respondents checked “other” job requirements,
thus indicating that other management tasks were noted and recommended.
The information presented below seeks to highlight the job requirements,
personal capacity and training needs and options in respect to leadership and
management.
Job Requirements
As noted in Table 30, all the job requirements presented were considered as
relatively important. Of particular importance to all respondents were:
� Ensuring the timeous submission of documents
� Ensuring up to date record books, and
� Assertiveness in handling unpleasant circumstances
When this information is categorized by job classes (Table 31), one easily notes
that the leadership requirements referred to were mostly pertinent to EDO. As a
result, EDOs responded with a high degree of acceptability. Subject Advisors
felt relatively strongly that “record books should be up to date and in place”.
Lecturers (mostly Subject Advisors) allotted some importance to the election of
SGBs and RCLs, and similar to the EDOs, felt that “assertiveness in handling
unpleasant and difficult issues” is very important as a leadership trait.
Table 30: Job Requirements: Leadership & Management Development
JOB REQUIREMENTS
Ensure that requisitions, returns
and surveys are submitted
timeously by Principal and
responsible official
Ensure that all record books are in
place and up to date
Ensure that SGBs and RCLs are
elected
Ensure that SGB and RCL
elections are planned and run
effectively and that SGBs and
RCLs are elected
Assertiveness I handling
unpleasant or difficult issues
Other job requirements I the
performance area
IMPORTANCE
FREQUENCY OF APPLICATION
LOW HIGH LOW HIGH
NR 1&2 3 4&5 % NR 1&2 3 4&5 %
204 108 41 331 69 225 145 54 260 57
183 67 72 362 72 202 132 112 238 49
215 133 50 284 61 232 185 73 192 43
218 139 47 278 60 240 187 72 183 41
194 77 88 325 66 212 122 119 231 49
246 95 94 243 56 260 130 107 177 43
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