One of the issues encountered in the field of early childhood education (ECE) is the training and development of the next generation of leaders. Most present-day leaders in this field have found themselves in leadership positions more by chance than by intent. One thing is certain: central to the success of any venture is the capacity of its leaders, be they aspiring or new executives, administrators, unit heads, or the C-Suite.
Although there are limited proofs regarding early childhood education leadership, there’s an increasing interest in acquiring a better understanding of what a good ECE leadership should look like across different contexts and environments, and how ECE leadership can clearly influence quality.
For a better understanding of what is expected from our ECE leaders, it is important that we understand the broad range of training and programs that make up this profession.
What is leadership?
Before we delve into early childhood leadership, let’s examine the question “what is leadership?” While this may seem like such a simple question since it’s a buzzword that’s usually thrown around, it’s often misused and continues to rile popular consultants and laypeople as well. One explanation for this could be that leadership carries different meanings.
According to Forbes, Leadership has nothing to do with your position or seniority in the hierarchy of an organization, it has nothing to do with titles, personal attributes (formidability or charisma), and neither is its management.
This has shown us what leadership isn’t. So the question still remains, what exactly is leadership?
According to Prentice in the Harvard Business Review, Leadership is described as the achievement of a goal through the direction of human assistants, and a good leader is an individual who can understand the motivations of others and solicit employee participation in a manner that balances both group purposes and individual needs or interests together.
So, basically, leadership is the intersection of personality traits, skills, knowledge, social influence, and character attributes, which maximizes the efforts of others to work towards a common goal.
What Leadership Looks Like in an Early Childhood Context
Leadership in an ECE context involves effecting development by influencing individuals, in locations where ECE takes place, and getting involved in and promoting the conduct of experts and ethical practices.
Leaders in this setting often enter this field with a deep love of children. They often have experience and specific skills including flexibility, ability to embrace diversity, understanding how children develop and learn, organization, patience, and the ability to communicate excellently with children, teachers, parents, guardians, and the community.
People and their roles in an ECE
The individuals who participate in the ECE setting influence what occurs within this environment and likewise, the settings influence the individuals within the ECE environment. People in the ECE context include children, the families of the children, teacher or educator, administrator and other executives, accountant, development officer, bus driver, and other casual workers within the ECE setting.
These people have different roles they perform, and they often come from different social, economic, political, and cultural backgrounds. The leadership roles of ECE include:
Child Center Manager, Child Center Director, or Program Director
Head Start Education Coordinator (and other Head Start Coordinator positions)
Program or Project Coordinator
Primary School Principal
Supervisor
Child Care Advocate
Child Development or Mental Health Counsellor
Teachers, Trainers, or Instructors
Types of Settings in an ECE
There are different varieties of programs where ECE leaders can conduct their responsibilities. This include:
Full-day Child Care:
This program usually begins from 6 am to 7 pm and caters to children between 6weeks to twelve years old.
Half-day Programs:
These programs are often part-day and are typically referred to as Preschool, Playschool, Nurseries, Pre-primary, or Pre-kindergarten. It serves children between the age of three to five years.
Head Start other early childhood education:
This is a federally funded childhood education and care program. This can include home visiting, full-day childcare service (6 hours), or half-day.
Early Intervention Programs:
This is a special program for children with disabilities. It serves children from birth to three years old and from three to five in free-standing programs.
Family daycare centers, or play centers, early learning centers, nanny services centers:
This serves children from birth to 3 year-olds and their parents.
Summer Camps:
This serves children between 3 to 12 years, often as a skill-development camp.
Hospital and Child Life Programs:
This serves children who are hospitalized and typically imitates a therapeutic and recreational constituent. An important component with this is a knowledge of medical procedures and a familiarity with hospital policies.
Kindergarten:
This program can either be conducted in a private or public school for children between 5 to 6 years. It can also be part of a child care center.
Primary School:
This serves children from 6 to 8 for at least six hours per day. Before and after school care may be provided within the school building.
Leadership Structures in an ECE
Leadership structures within the ECE context examine how power is distributed in this field. Although traditionally the leadership structure has been conceptualized in form of a hierarchical structure where there is a head or leader and other followers. However, now we have a collective or distributed leadership structure.
Distributed leadership is when several individuals are included in leadership, and leadership is not distinguished by a single job title. Instead, it is defined by the actions of those performing leadership duties to impact a change or improvement.
For instance, teacher leaders can be involved in training, assisting, and supervising new teachers. They can also lead other employees in professional development activities, choose and backup curriculum, and champion family engagement efforts.
Why is leadership training important in early childhood care and education?
Over the last decade or so, experts and educators alike have strived to define the appropriate characteristics and capabilities of a good early childhood educator, especially those who want to occupy leadership positions.
Nevertheless, research across different fields has demonstrated that leadership is one of the most significant factors for innovation, quality improvement, and organizational performance. The implication of this is that effective leadership is essential and required in the early childhood education environment.
ECE services are hardly rendered on their own. Leaders in this field are challenged to understand the broad spectrum of issues that influence the profession, develop competencies to operate effectively across various interest groups and disciplines, and develop the quality of ECE services, which can impact the lives of children and their families.
Moreover, when ECE leaders perform upside-down leadership, employees are more likely to feel empowered to make suggestions and apply their skills productively. These leaders embrace their strengths to move the organization forward. They can also identify areas for development and learn from experts and coworkers.
Practices that depict leadership in an ECE context
Practices encompass all the professional roles that ECE leaders can handle. This is typically grouped into stakeholder, pedagogy creator, policy designer, and rights’ advocate.
Stakeholders
Leading people in an ECE context as a stakeholder involves sourcing and recruiting new employees to fill vacant positions, allocating roles and duties to each employee, offering support and mentoring for employees, designing skill development training and programs, organizing and conducting staff meetings, and ensuring safety within the ECE setting.
Pedagogy creators
Individuals within the pedagogy creator typically contribute to the vision and strategies that enable knowledge construction within this field. So, leading people in an ECE context as a pedagogy creator is not just about teaching, drafting learning assessment and curriculum, but also understanding what it takes to ensure the daily well-being of the children. These educators create, develop, and provide instructive resources to be applied to help children learn.
Policy designers
Leading people in an ECE context as a policy designer involves devising a vision that replicates the bigger picture for ECE. This includes a series of proficient actions required to ensure that the policies designed to provide for governance in the ECE environment are transparent, lawful, and impartial. The aim is to reduce any form of risk to the children and others within the ECE environment. These individuals also offer guidelines for all stakeholders within the ECE setting.
Rights’ advocates
Leading people in an ECE context as a rights advocate involves the political work environment of the ECE, where voices are raised to improve the wellbeing of the children. This role requires the rights’ advocate to push for the success of his/her own organization, to advocate for development in working conditions for other colleagues, and to advocate for an equally good condition for other individuals within the ECE setting and community at large.
What’s next?
There’s no one-size-fits-all strategy to becoming a good ECE leader. A foundation for providing leadership is to evaluate your existing knowledge of the ECE system, analyze how that knowledge can continue to grow, and never stop learning. Asides from possessing expertise in specific areas, ECE leaders must also be able to understand the early childhood system itself and the policies that inform the level of quality of services to be offered to children and families.
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