Early Childhood Leadership in Action

Evidence-based approaches for effective practice

Lennie Barblett

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000256840
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Early Childhood Education

Leadership is a core skill required by all early childhood educators, whatever position they hold - whether leading their own ethical and professional practice or leading others. From understanding ethical frameworks to managing change, and from quality assurance to working with teams, families and the wider community, the most effective early childhood leaders act with confidence, flexibility and creativity.In this book early childhood researchers Elizabeth Stamopoulos and Lennie Barblett provide a new model for leadership. Recognising that leadership is both an individual and collective endeavour, multi-layered and multidimensional, the authors have distilled core tasks of leadership that are explored in detail in each chapter:
*Understanding and conceptualising theories of leadership
*Leading in times of change
* Advocating for high quality pedagogy and practice
*Developing strong communication skills
* Leading through digital technology and media
* Developing effective teams
* Building positive relationships with families and the wider community
* Embedding Indigenous perspectives
* Embracing evidence-based research
And
* Leading ethical practice.Featuring the perspectives of leaders from diverse settings, together with reflection exercises and discussion questions throughout, this is an essential book for both pre-service and in-service early childhood educators.'The authors...are commended for their commitment to shining a light on a wide range of research, theories and issues concerned with leadership and the early childhood profession. ' -- from the foreword by Catharine Hydon and Dr Anne Kennedy

PART 1
LEADERSHIP IN EARLY CHILDHOOD

1
Conceptualising and theorising early childhood leadership

No one person holds the key to understanding the complexities of leadership, nor a template for finding the correct answers. Instead, leaders need to create a space in which professional identity can be crafted through ongoing dialogue and reflection.

STAMOPOULOS, 2012

THIS CHAPTER WILL:

• describe constructions of early childhood leadership
• explore the differences and similarities between management and early childhood leadership
• investigate the personal qualities and attributes of effective and ethical early childhood leaders
• describe theories of early childhood leadership
• reflect on early childhood leadership models and styles
• encourage the interrogation of theories and models and acknowledge gaps and silences
• generate a new paradigm or way of thinking about early childhood leadership.

Overview

Leadership is an essential driver of quality programs and positive outcomes for children. Investigating theories, models and concepts of early childhood leadership is the first step to establishing an understanding of how leadership works. Definitions of leadership vary and it is a topic that is hotly debated. Much of the thinking about leadership in early childhood has been generated by work and research from other sectors and is often founded on traditional business perspectives. Leadership in the early childhood field is now under the microscope, as it is a key driver for quality; yet many in the early childhood profession do not see themselves as leaders. However, all early childhood educators lead in some way, whether it is through their own professional and ethical practice or in a more formal role. This means all educators should possess the knowledge of what constitutes effective ethical early childhood leadership. For all early childhood educators, understanding and challenging definitions, theories, models and attributes and styles of leadership—in both early childhood and other contexts—offers a way to reimagine leadership in contemporary early childhood contexts. This chapter reflects on past paradigms, models and approaches in order to build a new paradigm of early childhood leadership in action.

Defining leadership

Leadership is one of the most observed and least understood phenomena on earth.

BENNIS & NANUS, 1985

Early childhood leadership is not easy to define. Leadership is neither simple nor automatic, but rather is complex and ambiguous and evolves over time. The concept of early childhood leadership is often broken down and analysed or aligned with theories to make it easier to examine. However, effective early childhood leadership comes from complex and sophisticated thinking and is ‘more than the sum of its parts’ (Rodd, 2013, p. 9). The absence of a single agreed definition of early childhood leadership, and often unspecified leadership roles and responsibilities in early childhood, may be a reason many educators are reluctant to connect with a leadership role that may be beyond their professional ‘comfort zone’ (Stamopoulos, 2015). In the early childhood field, educators make decisions and display high levels of autonomy and independence in their work, yet many do not identify as early childhood leaders. Educators are hesitant about taking on leadership roles or identifying as a leader, even though they may recognise its importance.

See Chapter 8 for a discussion on ‘a collective worldview’.

Definitions of early childhood leadership, it has been suggested, endure for about ten years; as new research leads to new ways of thinking, new perspectives are identified (Razik & Swanson, 2010). The complexity of modern organisations, and the rapid pace of change within the early childhood field, means our current understanding of early childhood leadership will evolve over time. Leadership begins with individuals and all educators should have an understanding of early childhood leadership and its many facets.

Leader’s voice from the field

Being an early childhood ‘leader’ is the ability to influence others, to have a vision for change, to be able to share that vision with others in a way that challenges and inspires them to buy into your vision within an open, honest, trustworthy partnership that allows for mentoring to reach that vision.

Early childhood leadership has been defined as ‘setting a direction or vision for a group to follow’ (Click & Karkos, 2008, p. 7) and ‘relat[ing] a vision of the future to strategies for achieving it, which are capable of co-opting support, compliance, and teamwork in its achievement and serve to motivate and sustain commitment to its purpose’ (Davis & Davidson, 1991, p. 201).

While defining early childhood leadership can be challenging, there are many common elements in the various definitions in the literature. These include the importance of personal attributes and relationships, notions of relational power, influence and trust, followers (those who follow an inspiring leader), shared purpose and intent. Relational power is important for leaders to understand, as it draws upon influence, trust and cooperation. In early childhood contexts, leadership is developed in a climate of collective responsibility, where positive relationships are built to bring about a shared moral purpose to act in the best interests of children.

Look at Chapter 2 to better understand how vision can be transformed into practice.

It has been argued that a single definition of leadership in early childhood is not advisable because it can limit originality, invention and diversity in leadership (Waniganayake et al., 2017). Others suggest that, because leadership is ‘a social construction and an experienced phenomenon’, it is a broad and changing notion with no fixed identity; it is ‘in a constant state of deconstruction, interpretation and reconstruction’ (McDowall Clark & Murray, 2012, p. 5). However, it is helpful to define early childhood leadership to act as a frame of reference in order to develop a shared understanding of leadership and bring clarity to the profession. Description is warranted to explain the tasks—drawn from the literature, practice and research—that make up effective and ethical early childhood leadership. So, in pinning down our definition of leadership in early childhood contexts, we constructed Table 1.1.

TABLE 1.1 What leadership is and is not

Leadership is	Leadership is not
Collaboratively working with others in ethical ways that influence movement towards a shared vision	Just about following
Diffused and distributed power that is shared with others	About power over others
Everybody’s responsibility, as it is inherent in being, belonging and becoming a professional	Only about personal traits and attributes
About being thoughtful, strategic and always learning	Something you are ‘born with or to do’
The intertwining of social, emotional and intellectual dimensions of professionalism	Only an intellectual dimension

From setting out our thinking this way, we have defined leadership as an individual and collective responsibility that requires knowledge, thought and courage to act ethically and professionally in the best interests of children, their families and the profession. Leadership can be described as having qualities that are both intrinsic (self-responsibility, generated from within) and extrinsic (generated by others).

We believe it is important for individuals, teams and organisations to think about the meanings of leadership and, by reconceptualising theories, models and/or concepts, come to a professional consensus and apply this thinking to their context. This is because how leadership is defined influences how people engage in it (Lambert, 2002).

Traditional views of leadership gravitate to the perception of a single positional leader. In early childhood contexts there are many terms that denote leadership roles, including:

• team leader
• pedagogical leader
• educational leader
• room leader
• director
• teacher-in-charge
• principal
• advisor
• manager.

However, not all leadership roles are positional. The collective responsibility of early childhood education requires attention to shared practice and effective relationships to ensure leadership is something in which everyone can engage, even though there will be some positions with greater levels or different types of power and influence. Indeed, every early childhood educator exercises leadership when they take personal responsibility for their actions and make decisions in the course of their work. All educators are responsible for their own ethical and professional practice, and thus lead others by example. Leadership can be intrinsic—generated by the individual—or extrinsic—generated by others (Gill, 2006). Therefore, early childhood leadership need not be a hierarchical position; it can be a state of being, and aspects of leadership, no matter the p...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• List of tables and figures
• About the authors and contributors
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Part 1 Leadership in Early Childhood
• Part 2 Leading and Supporting Others
• Part 3 Leading Responsibly and Ethically
• Acknowledgements
• Bibliography
• Index