The Paradox of Success and Failure: Why K–12 School Leaders Who Advance Through Performance-Based Evaluation Systems Embrace Them While Those Who Stagnate Resist Them, and Why Both Perspectives Reveal Fundamental Truths

This study uses Hegelian dialectical analysis to explore why positively perceived, performance-based evaluation systems are viewed favorably by primary and secondary school leaders in the African contexts who have successfully advanced through them and, conversely, why those that are denied advancement critically view them, with both perspectives coloring certain realities from one extreme to another. The analysis shows that endorsed leaders have rightly identified the possibility of metrics disrupting patronage, but not realizing the absence of their objective measurement for leadership quality, while denied leaders are right in articulating systematic contextual bias but risk being disinterested in accountability altogether.