Spiritual character traits and leadership in the school workplace: An exploration of the relationship between spirituality and school leadership in some private and religiously affiliated schools in South Africa

The South African educational system is in a crisis. This situation places huge demands on school principals and school management teams, and raises many theoretical and empirical questions. Transformational leadership is needed to deal with these challenges and complexities. Not all school leaders show the same level of transformational leadership. Some leaders conform more to other leadership styles. The aim of this article is to explore the relation between spiritual character traits and leadership styles from a theoretical and empirical perspective. The theoretical part focuses on the conceptualisation of leadership (styles) and spirituality. The empirical research consists of a web-based survey conducted in some private and religiously affiliated schools in South Africa in 2011–2012. The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) and Cloninger’s shortened Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI-140) were used to measure leadership styles and spiritual traits respectively. Statistical procedures included confirmatory factor analysis, correlation (Pearson rho) and regression analysis. Key findings are that leaders of private schools in South Africa mostly conform to a transformative leadership style, disagree with corrective leadership and strongly disagree with passive-avoidant leadership. Regarding the spiritual character traits they agree with self-transcendence and strongly agree with self-directedness. Spiritual character traits are strong predictors for transformational and passive-avoidant leadership. Higher levels of self-transcendence and self-directedness are strong predictors for transformational leadership. Our research suggests that traditional religious variables are less important as predictors of leadership style than spiritual character traits

Religion and Conflict Attribution

Religion in a pluralistic society can play a dual role with regard to conflict. It can promote either violence or peace. Religion and Conflict Attribution examines the causes of interreligious conflict as perceived by Christian, Muslim and Hindu college students in Tamil Nadu, India. Readership: Academic institutions, researchers, post-graduate students and religious authorities interested in the scientific study of religion. The findings are of specific relevance to educationalists dealing with interreligious and intercultural issues

Introduction

There is a trend in theology (for example, in the works of Jamie Smith in the USA and of Herman Paul in The Netherlands) to describe the battle of the heart as the core problem of the Christian religion in modern culture and, more specifically, the Christian churches. According to Augustine, the economy of the heart prevails for human beings; in other words, the complex mixture of longings are the driving forces of human lives. This longing is not an intellectual puzzle, but rather a craving for sustenance (see Ps. 42:1-2). The heart is the location of the teleological orientation towards the good life. For Augustine, this teleological aspect is coupled with the fundamental centrality of love: What we love, is where our heart is. We do not love God as our creator and sustainer of the world, but our love is oriented towards the world and manifested in individualism, narcissism, materialism, nationalism, and terrorism. The notion that emerges from this central orientation to so many aspects of the existential foundation of human existence provides sufficient motivation for further academic reflection. For this research project, academic reflection occurs against the background of the 40th birthday celebrations of the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa. In this 40th year of the Faculty’s existence, we can indeed reflect on various “battles of the heart” that form part of the history of this special institution. As organisers of the project, the Department of Practical and Missional Theology, University of the Free State, deemed it fit to facilitate further reflection and discourse on the “battle of the heart” within this context. The Faculty of Theology and Religion is honoured to have Profs. Chris Hermans and Stephan Joubert associated as extraordinary professors with the Department of Practical and Missional Theology. Both Profs. Hermans and Joubert were requested to deliver introductory papers to the research conference. Interlocutors from various Departments in the Faculty, from other theological faculties in South Africa, and one colleague from another associated discipline were invited to participate in the prestige research conference that took place on 26 February 2020 in Bloemfontein. The initial papers presented at this conference were later extensively adapted, further developed and edited for this publication by the authors

Dependent Autonomy : Towards a Contestualised and Dialogic Aim for Moral Education

This article presents two approaches to moral education: the autonomy approach and the heteronomy approach. Generally the two approaches are considered to be mutually exclusive. The study described here, conducted among Dutch teachers at Catholic primary schools, reflects a positive relation between the two approaches. This leads to the assumption that teachers regard moral education as a dialogical, embodied and contextual process (Vygotski). In order to achieve autonomy, notions of the good life need to be transmitted to children.

Religion and Conflict Attribution

Religion in a pluralistic society can play a dual role with regard to conflict. It can promote either violence or peace. Religion and Conflict Attribution examines the causes of interreligious conflict as perceived by Christian, Muslim and Hindu college students in Tamil Nadu, India. Readership: Academic institutions, researchers, post-graduate students and religious authorities interested in the scientific study of religion. The findings are of specific relevance to educationalists dealing with interreligious and intercultural issues