The school principal as human resource manager

The school principal is employed and given a mandate which is explicit, either being outlined in a job description, or implicit as evidenced by the utterances of the political head of the education system, to raise the performance of his/her school. This usually means that the principal must ensure that the students in his school perform to meet or exceed the national average of performance that students have set.

To ensure that he/she achieves this goal, the principal has to work with a team - senior teachers, teachers, students, administrative and ancillary workers,  parents and other stakeholders achieve his/her goal.

How does the principal do this? He/she has to be a human resource manager. That is, the principal has to devise policies and strategies to motivate the human beings whom he/she manages to work towards contributing to the goal that the education directorate has set for schools generally and his/her school in particular. This is part of the thrust of human resource management, to motivate the people in the organisation to buy into the vision of the organisation and to enthusiastically, for the most part, work toward achieving that vision.

The word motivation is quite loaded because as a practice it requires a number of strategies by the human resource manager/motivator to capture the enthusiasm, the commitment and the effort of workers in order to realise the organisation's vision.

In the case of the school, the principal in his/her role as human resource manager, has to do the following to motivate stakeholders:

1. He/she has to set clear goals for the school with input from teachers, and other stakeholders and  communicate clearly these goals to the school community, and lead by example as the school community marches towards achieving these goals.

2. He/she needs to praise stakeholders for a job well done, and put mechanisms in place to coach those who are lagging behind into producing acceptable performance

3. He/she needs to take responsibility when he/she has led his/her stakeholders in the wrong direction

4. He/she needs to be fair in his/her dealing with the stakeholders of the school, or has to try to be perceived to be fair

5. He/she has to refrain from maligning his/her staff in the public domain

6. He/she has to genuinely care about what's happening in his/her organisation

7. He/she has to address troublesome issues promptly

Whatever the principal may think, his/her role as principal extends beyond steering the operations of the school from the comforts of his/her office. Since his/her organisation, the school, is made up of human beings, the human resources of the school, he/she has to be actively and positively engaged with them.

If the principal does not actively engage with the key stakeholders of his/her school by motivating them, there is no way that he/she will achieve the goals of the school because:

1. Teachers need recognition, respect and encouragement and a sense of inclusion before they are willing to exert themselves for the school.

2. Students need to feel that the teachers care about their success and are doing everything to ensure their success before they exert the effort to raise their levels of performance. Therefore,  if teachers just go through the motions,  students will, too.

3. Many parents need to feel that they are a part of the school community before they extend any support to the school.

Therefore, the principal needs to understand the needs of the stakeholders with whom he/she works, the triggers which cause their resentment and therefore their lack of interest in the organisation, that is, he/she needs to understand his/her human resource function in the organisation.

If he/she chooses not to make the effort to understand and positively connect with the people with whom he/she works, he/she will have a very difficult job achieving his/her vision for the school, assuming that he/she has one.

Do you believe that the principal should concern him/herself with issues of human resource management?

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