Leadership under pressure: Investigating the challenges faced by women departmental heads in South African schools

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This paper explored the challenges women departmental heads face in South African schools, focusing on how gendered dynamics, institutional expectations, and systemic barriers shape their leadership experiences. Although departmental heads play a critical role in bridging instructional leadership and school management, women in these positions often navigate additional layers of complexity arising from socio-cultural norms, gender stereotypes, and unequal access to leadership development opportunities. Grounded in the Transformational Leadership Theory, this study adopted an interpretive qualitative approach and utilised narrative inquiry as the research design. It drew on semi-structured interviews with six women departmental heads across primary and secondary schools in a selected district in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The data, collected over a three-month period, were analysed using the thematic narrative analysis method. The findings revealed that women Departmental Heads (DHs) experienced leadership as a role fraught with constant gendered pressure, patriarchy, isolation, and institutional indifference. The findings further revealed that DHs, through resilient leadership, engaged in a quiet revolution, transforming mindsets and communities, breaking stereotypes, not with force, but with grace and strength. By giving voice to the lived experiences of these leaders, the study contributes to the discourse on gender equity in educational leadership and offers practical recommendations for creating more transformational, inclusive, and supportive environments for women in mid-level leadership roles.

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