Abstract

This paper explores the complexity of conflict in schools. Like many other organisations, schools experience conflicts that may cut through the entire institution. Today, people know that conflicts can bring about positive results that may support change management in organisations. However, the leaders’ lack of skills in conflict management and transformation destroys organisations. Conflict is unavoidable but skilled role-players in an organisation’s management are likely to glean the best out of it. This case study was a comparative investigation between two South African schools where the researcher focused on how conflicts affect aspects such as school effectiveness, staff competence, and the principals’ efficacy. The results shed light on a number of critical aspects and demonstrated the need for schools’ role-players, especially the management teams, to understand conflict processes. The role-players need basic skills such as mediation and avoidance skills, as well as ways of collaboration to ameliorate the negative effects of destructive conflicts. In one of the two schools, meticulous conflict management was reported as one of the reasons for its success whilst in the other the school’s programs were disrupted because of the lack of conflict management skills. The study’s conclusions demonstrate that teachers as well as other role-players in schools need to be well prepared in conflict management strategies.