A research report submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of Witwatersrand in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the Master of Management in the Field of Public Management and Development degree January 2016 / The study explores the role of traditional leaders in the Greater Taung Local Municipality (GTLM) situated in the Dr Ruth Segomotsi Mompati District Municipality, North West Province. The purpose of the study is to investigate the role and the participation of the traditional leadership in the Greater Taung Local Municipal affairs, as well as to establish the factors leading to the tension between the traditional leaders and the municipal councillors in the municipality. Furthermore, the study proposed leadership strategies aimed at harmonising the relations between the Greater Taung municipal councillors and the traditional leaders, with the aim of ensuring sound collaboration and partnership between the two important stakeholders in provision of service delivery and development, a partnership that is more likely to improve good governance and service delivery in the area of jurisdiction of Greater Taung Local Municipality. / MT 2018

A research report submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Masters by Coursework and Research Report in the field of Industrial Organisational Psychology in the faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, 2017 / The purpose of the study was study to investigate relationships of employee psychological empowerment, transformational leadership and resistance to change among employees in Johannesburg, South Africa. There were 51 male participants and 57 female participants. Participants voluntarily participated in the study. The instruments used to collect data were the Multifactor Leadership questionnaire, resistance to change scale and psychological empowerment questionnaire. Data were analysed using correlations and multiple regression analyses. The results showed that employee psychological empowerment and resistance to change, age and resistance to change were the only significant results. Future studies can focus on factors that influence the readiness for change in South Africa which could include the opportunity to participate in the planned change projects, demonstrating the need for change and employee psychological empowerment. In addition, Future studies could also address the interest gap between generation X and Y in terms of implementing rigorous programmes which foster the empowerment of the workforce in organisations for both generations and reduce resistance to change / XL2017

Thesis (M.M. (Governance and Public Leadership))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Wits School of Governance, 2017. / Former president of the movement Thabo Mbeki, in summarising what a government committed to and must do, said: “We must ensure that today is better than yesterday and that tomorrow will be better than today.” Effective leadership will play a pivotal role in ensuring that the words articulated by the previous president Mbeki is in fact realised and becomes a reality for all in South Africa. This is, equally the responsibility and mandate that all SOE’s should accept and carry out a day-to-day basis. We need leaders that are “accountable, contemplative”, who reflect and always put people and our constitutional values first. As the City of Johannesburg (COJ) embarks on a new journey by the appointments of community leaders to the boards of the SOE’s in the City Of Johannesburg (COJ). This would indeed be ground breaking and the very first in the City of Johannesburg. As South Africa continues to address the imbalances of the past, at the centre and one of the most important is housing and liveable homes for all South Africans. Therefore Community leaders appointed to the boards of the SOE’s have an important and significant role to play to not only ensure community needs are met but also the transition and transformational agenda of the city and the country as a whole is achieved. Community leaders are seen to be more in touch with their communities they serve on a day to day basis. To some they are beacon of hope and to others they are mentors and role models. They also tend to give people hope that indeed tomorrow will be better than today. The focus of the research was on one entity namely Johannesburg Social Housing Company (JOSHCO). The entity has a capital budget of 1.5 Billion Rands. The mandate of this entity is to provide social housing and to transform traditional hostel dwelling into homes. This shift from hostels to homes is a significant one and will require a life style change and will have significant impact on families and the community. There is a problem of a leadership skills gap with/among community leaders appointed to the board of Johannesburg Social Housing Company (Joshco) as a State Owned Entity in the city of Johannesburg which will be needed to achieve the strategic objectives. Community leaders bring a very different dynamic to the boards of the SOE in the city of Johannesburg. They most definitely have a voice and challenges the status quo, and their different views with a community focus. They most certainly add value to the entity and the shareholder. It is most noticeable that community leaders have a transformational style to their qualities and traits as a leader. It is on that basis the researcher will demonstrate through the theories and research that is Transformational Leadership, and their qualities thereof is what is needed in the State Owned Companies in the City Of Johannesburg. Transformational leaders would most certainly advance the call for better, effective and efficient service delivery of services in the city. The researcher has focused on Transformational leadership as the conceptual framework for the purpose of this study. The data was collected after having conducted 18 interviews with respondents. The respondents are as follows - Board members of the entity - Faith based organisation in the city of JHB - Senior Administrative staff from the City of Johannesburg - Community leader from civil society Whilst having communities leaders are part of the board of the state owned entity, certain challenges were identified through this study, namely - Lack of leadership Skills - Inductions and knowledge of the business - All community based board members should sign a code of conduct and code of ethics - The skills mix of the board must include members from different areas of business - The must be oversight responsibilities fulfilled by the board members and not operational responsibilities - Stakeholder relations and Communications - Continuous professional development The researcher has also recommended strategies for implementation on the impact on the role of community leaders in the boards of the state owned entity in the city of JHB. They are as follows: - Board member’s must be trained on areas of leadership. The leadership qualities of board member’s must be developed and enhanced -The induction program should include areas like, roles and responsibilities of directors, financial management, the PFMA, strategy and leadership. - The skills mix of the board must include members from different areas of business, that is HR, finance, technical i.e. engineering skills, Strategy and corporate governance and leadership. - The Board of JOSHCO need to be at the forefront in terms of communicating with stakeholders, i.e. communities they service, suppliers, labour unions and the staff members. The board needs to be proactive and constantly engage with communities. - The board has to set up a transformation agenda / strategy - Board members must receive continuous training and development. They should be Members of IODSA hey and must kept abreast with relevant director developments and relevant changes that directors should be appraised of. The boards of state owned entities in the City of JHB is at the epicentre of service delivery for 4.5 million citizens of JHB. They must continue to drive the transformation agenda and ensure that the strategic goals of the entity and the shareholder will be realised. Board members must be willing to serve rather than self in rich. “What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead “Nelson Mandela. / MT2017

Thesis (M.M. (Public and Development Management))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Wits School of Governance, 2017. / The aim of this study is to identify the main reasons for why there is poor leadership and poor service delivery in the Emalahleni Local Municipality. The study undertook a comprehensive review of related literature in order to enhance the knowledge gap within the concept of leadership and governance. This research adopted the qualitative research method as the research study deals with real-life social issues which involve the employees of Emalahleni Local Municipality and the residents of Emalahleni itself. Face-to-face interviews were conducted both in the Emalahleni Local Municipality and Emalahleni area to collect credible data for the study. In addition, the sample size considered for this study was ten participants who were interviewed for the study, five employees from the Emalahleni Local Municipality and five residents from the Emalahleni area. The findings derived from the data collected reveal that the Emalahleni Local Municipality is struggling to provide good services to its citizens due to the poor leadership within the municipality. In addition, the employees of Emalahleni are not performing well in their respective jobs due to insufficient training and the fact that not everyone working for the municipality is employed based on merit, which contributes to a lack of capacity and poor service delivery. The researcher makes recommendations which include appointing employees with the right skills and knowledge, developing and improving on the training programmes that already exist within the municipality, following the right leadership style to change and develop the municipality, and electing leaders who have the interests of the people at heart. / MT2017

This study set out to investigate the role of values in educational leadership. The renewed interest in values in both educational and corporate environments in South Africa places new pressures on members in leadership positions especially in school life. Schools are described as the ‘nurseries’ of values. The understanding of the abstract nature of values, as well as instrumentalising and implementing values in vision statements and organisational life, poses challenges to present and future school leaders. This study, based in the interpretive paradigm, is an in-depth investigation into the role of values at a former model C primary school in the Eastern Cape. Through the use of observations, document analysis, focus groups and interviews as data collection tools, this research highlights the importance of values in school leadership and how this impacts the life of the school leader. This case-study research combines theoretical and contextual frameworks to question the nature of values in leadership and uses the real-life experiences of these school leaders to resonate with current understandings of values in leadership and organisational culture. The importance of understanding these complexities in the lives and experiences of these school leaders cannot be underestimated. My findings highlight the tensions between leading successful schools (task/person efficiency) and remaining congruent with the need for leadership for social justice in post-apartheid educational institutions. The uniqueness of the school environment (‘families’ and ‘communities’) is also featured and resonates with previous literature. Through the lens of emerging leadership trends, we discover these school leaders’ understandings of values in their daily lives: they do what they are and this is reflected in this school’s unique organisational culture, which could be said to ‘transcend’ present leaders’ influence. Finally I propose that further research is necessary in order to broaden our understanding of the unique role of values in educational leadership in South Africa.

This research provides insight into the servant leadership principles that are found in the mission, vision and values statements of companies. The primary purpose of this study is to investigate the corporate philosophies of companies to ascertain whether it contains servant leadership principles and thus to what extent these companies may utilise these principles. Mayer, Bardes and Piccolo (2008) state that servant leaders are lead by a moral orientation, which results in the likelihood of them engaging in ethical practices and being unbiased in the decision-making process. The lack of moral and ethical behaviour by leaders indicates that there is a need for a leadership method that is based on ethical practices and moral behaviour. Trompenaars and Voerman (2009) noted that companies who have implemented servant leadership are successful as a result. Spears (2004) indicated that the corporate philosophy of a company should reflect its leadership. This study will therefore aim to identify whether servant leadership principles are evident in the corporate philosophies of companies by using a framework developed to investigate servant leadership. A mixed method empirical research design was applied, using published financial statements to analyse the corporate philosophies of companies. Convenience sampling was used to identify a sample of 100 companies. Fifty companies from the top 200 listed companies at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in South Africa (JSE) and another fifty companies from the top 100 listed companies at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) were included in the sample. The values statements, missions and visions of each company were qualitatively analysed and coded. This resulted in a set of data that could be quantitatively analysed. The results show that the majority of the sample as a whole displayed at least five out of the ten servant leadership principles. The JSE sample only displayed five out of the ten xv servant leadership principles compared to the NYSE sample that displayed seven out of the ten. There was also no statistical significant difference between the results of the respondent companies of the two stock exchanges. The JSE sample referred mostly to the servant leadership principle of Integrity, while the NYSE sample referred mostly to Employee empowerment and development. It can be concluded that servant leadership principles are indeed present in the corporate philosophies of companies listed on both the JSE and the NYSE. However, these principles are present in varying degrees. This study provides research on servant leadership principles by providing an international comparison of the missions, visions and values statements of companies in two countries. The framework developed to investigate servant leadership principles can thus be further extended and used to investigate whether businesses in general are employing these principles.

The purpose of the research is to examine the effects that Apartheid had/has on the shaping of leadership styles of South African political leaders from all political affiliations and different backgrounds. The research phenemenon and tentative hypothesis is that these leaders were influenced in vastly different ways according to their positions as either advantaged, disadvantaged or unaffected by the system of Apartheid. The study will examine how these different experiences under the system of Apartheid shaped current leadership styles. / The system of apartheid, caused different life experiences for South Africans, and can be seen as a defining moment in the development of South Africa, its leaders and citizens. This study investigated how these different life experiences under apartheid influenced leadership styles of South African political leaders. After completion of a literature review, semi structured life history interviews were conducted with a representative sample of members of the South African Parliament, to generate qualitative data for analysis. Content analysis was applied to this data to generate a basis from which valid and reliable conclusions and recommendations were made. The research found support in both the literature review and qualitative life stories data collected for the following propositions: • Leadership is a complex construct, which is composed of many different characteristics and influences. • The life histories of individuals comprise of a combination of unique life experiences and subjective interpretations of those experiences. • Individual life histories influence leadership development. • Apartheid was a time line event that encompassed many different life experiences of individuals within the broad phenomenon, which phenomenon does not necessarily in itself have a significantly 7 homogeneous effect on the shaping of leadership styles. What is a more significant shaper of leadership style is the leader’s experiences in and attitude towards the event or phenomenon. • Life experiences under the phenomenon of apartheid influenced the leadership styles of South African political leaders differently in accordance with their unique life experiences itself, and their subjective interpretations thereof. The recordal of the life stories of South African political leaders presents an opportunity to learn at a broader interface from the experiences of the past, to shape a collective future for a free and democratic South Africa.

Thesis (MBA)--Stellenbosch University, 2013. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The discussions on leadership and strategy have attracted considerable interest from academics on one hand and business practitioners on the other. Much of the interest lies in claims that both leadership and strategy are linked to business performance. This research report examines the nature of the relationship between different leadership styles and organisation performance. The research study hypothesised that either authoritative leadership style leads to achievement of the business strategic plan (hypothesis 1) or that participative leadership style leads to achievement of the business strategic plan (hypothesis 2). The research was a quantitative study; data was collected by means of interviews and telephone questionnaires which were administered on 38 randomly selected business owners and senior managers. A linear regression method was used to test the hypothesis. The regression analyses revealed that participative leadership style and performance and authoritative leadership style are not related. These two variables each explain less than one per cent of the variance in performance. As a result, both null hypotheses were not rejected. This research concludes with a number of implications for further research studies. Stellenbosch University http://scholar.sun.ac.za

M.Phil. (Labour Law and Employment Relations) / South Africa has become an integral part of the ‘global village’ which is characterised inter alia, by industrial and commercial interaction, as well as by substantial competitiveness. Business organisations in South Africa should concomitantly pursue means to become more efficient and productive in order to avoid being overwhelmed by products and services from other countries at competitive prices and better quality. Some of the competitive disadvantages include cooperation in labour-employer relations, scarce skills, skills outflow, hiring and firing practices, employment rules and trade union contributions to productivity. It is also generally understood that the successful integration of these factors is dependant, almost exclusively, on effective leadership. However, it has become clear from a considerable body of scientific knowledge that organisational leaders are the agents that integrate all the forces at play in these organisations, and ultimately ensure its competitiveness, sustainability and survival. Whereas it is obvious that the Solidarity Trade Union is a unique organisation even within a business environment of active trade unionism, it is projected that the application of Hersey and Blanchard’s approach suggests that it will necessarily require a unique form or style of leadership, in order to be successful within the context of its unique strategic imperatives, whilst being a competitive trade union. The main objective of this study was to evaluate Solidarity’s current leadership styles, in order to determine whether it is effective to render the required services to its members. Hence, an evaluation of the readiness levels of Solidarity’s followers was undertaken to establish whether the current leadership styles of the executive management is in accordance with the readiness and requirements of its followers. This study therefore attempted to identify an appropriate leadership model for the evaluation of employees’ readiness within Solidarity. A combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods, known as triangulation, was used to enable the researcher to cross-check the findings and increase the validity and reliability of the findings. Face-to-face semi-structured individual interviews were conducted with respondents and a self-administered questionnaire was employed to collect data from members of the Executive Committee and National Executive of Solidarity. Documents were reviewed, as a source of secondary data, to obtain information regarding the historical background of Solidarity in terms of decisions made within the managerial structure and the nature of the organisation.

This study is concerned with the particular role of the teacher as a leader of pupils in a class, a legislated requirement for teachers in South Africa since 1996. Literature and research have focussed attention regarding leadership in education on the principal, school governing body and school management team, and more recently distributed leadership in schools. This study, in contrast, seeks to concentrate on the leadership of teachers as they teach classes of pupils. A review of the current leadership literature applicable, in my view, to the practice of leadership in schools, provided the opportunity for the development of a theoretical framing for the study around the categories of leaders knowing, doing, being and relating. Teachers from eight Section 21 (state-aided, previously advantaged and currently well-resourced) schools in the greater Ethekweni region of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa were selected for the study. They were observed in their teaching and interviewed to interrogate their understanding and performance as leaders, and to establish how and why leadership occurred or did not occur. Sampling for the four teachers who were observed in their teaching was purposive to establish levels of understanding, and enactment of leadership amongst advantaged teachers teaching in well resourced schools. These teachers were recommended for selection for this study by their principals, as teachers who had previously – in the opinion of the principals, evidenced leadership in their teaching. Forty three other teachers were interviewed in focus groups and film stimulus focus groups to view, consider and comment on teacher leadership behaviours in selected feature films – providing a vehicle for identifying how leadership occurs in teachers’ classes and what it is that teachers understand about leadership. Insights into the reason for teachers exercising leadership in a class were gained from consideration of the character and the competence of teachers, the circumstances under which leadership occurs and the nature of ‘called’ leaders with a sense of identity. The occurrences that caused the teachers to lead without any apparent training for leadership are examined in the light of the fact that these were selected teachers from well resourced schools who had all enjoyed growing and educational advantage. Their learning about leadership had been a largely unconscious occurrence in their lives. They did not know that they knew about leadership in teaching. The study firstly provides explanation of the phenomenon of leadership occurrence and understanding by teachers, who deny training in leadership and are not even aware of policy dictating that role for teachers insight and secondly, a new understanding of the relevant nature of the leadership practised by the teachers observed, and finally presents argument on the symbiotic nature of teaching and leading. This develops the thesis of the study; when teachers teach, they lead – to teach is to lead. It is recognised that the majority of teachers in South Africa will not have enjoyed the advantaged developmental experiences of the fortunate teachers in this study. Using the insights gained from this study, development of leadership in all teachers becomes a possibility. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2010.