Introduction Readers of this article who are working in the developing field of services for children and their families will be familiar with the government's children's workforce reform strategy - to prepare staff for new ways of working - with Every Child Matters: Next Steps (DfES, 2005) announcing a consultation on a pay and workforce strategy to rationalise the children's workforce as a whole. A new concept of an Early Years Professional (EYP) at graduate level has been developed to work across the sectors of education, care and health. The reforms raised the important question about leadership for this workforce, including a new National Professional Qualification in Integrated Centre Leadership (NPQICL) piloted in 2004, before being rolled out nationally for children's centre leaders and their deputies. What then about the distinct professional development needs of EYPs who, from the start of their careers, will be leading practice? A journey? Our work with groups of early years leaders and their staff traced the practical paths into leadership and explored the support needed at different points in a leadership career trajectory, to become beginning, competent and master leaders. It revealed that leaders were rarely supported through their career cycle. Bloom (1997) described the stories of her group of early childhood directors' careers and professional development as ‘navigating the rapids'. In fact, she likened becoming early childhood leaders to improvisation or ‘composing lives' that lacked insight in their career motivations and did not have a well thought-out plan. The absence of a focused path towards leadership in early childhood careers is unsurprising, given the previous lack of a clear framework and established progression routes. However, this should no longer be the case for EYPs today. What was most striking about our leaders' accounts was their own sense that becoming competent at something new, in this case, leadership came primary primarily from experience of doing it, in this case, leading. Everyday experience and real world situations were central but so was help from ‘experienced others' in order to review these everyday activities and processes, to support the learning journey and to develop practice. Asked what advice they would give to other early childhood beginning leaders, our leaders suggested: ‘take every opportunity to visit each other ... have knowledge of the range of provision that is out there'; ‘listen to people, be flexible, adapt to change and enable other people to do the same'; ‘inspire people and find inspiration in others'. ‘Navigating the rapids' calls for technical expertise, the calculation of risks and the countering of obstacles in the early stages of leading. Greater knowledge of the career cycle ‘journey' with mentoring and coaching along the way to identify a roadmap, to steer round detours and survive ‘near-miss crashes' will better equip determined EYPs to manage their own progress and development. Starting points Our discussions with early childhood leaders and other experts indicated a clear need to identify what effective early childhood leadership practices and outcomes were. This led us to work with a group of early childhood leaders and ‘middle' leaders to establish what leadership meant in their setting; what factors contributed to (or hindered) the effectiveness of the role; what were staff training needs; and how capacity could be built in the field. In terms of what leadership meant in their settings, stress was placed on having a clear vision and working towards this. Thinking strategically was emphasized in the light of the current changes in the sector. Fundamental to this was recognition of its multi-disciplinary nature and developing a shared philosophy. In terms of factors contributing to the effectiveness of the leadership role, the ability to promote early years across a range of agencies and groups was prerequisite. Given the high mobility in the sector, stability in leadership, with a firm commitment to working towards specific ECM outcomes was regarded as a basis for this. Commitment to continuing professional development and support of staff was also thought to contribute to effective leadership. Hindering fulfilment of the leadership role was a lack of knowledge about early childhood, characteristic at all levels from senior management teams, governors, local authority advisers, inspectors and trainee teachers. It was thought that lack of status for the early years led to a belief that such work was ‘easy'. A need for training in early childhood leadership and management at varying levels with appropriate funding was identified. This should comprise knowledge of the principles, capabilities and skills of leadership. Finally, in terms of building capacity in the field, the need for trainers who knew the early childhood field was emphasised. At the local level, cluster-group meetings with direct early childhood leadership training, support and advice was proposed, as was more time to reflect. Setting up networks and mentoring systems across the sector was also recommended. Valuing learning was at the heart of the process with a related commitment to ongoing professional development. Given Bloom's three-stage model of beginning, competent and ‘master' leaders, this suggests that staff development from the beginning of EYP practitioners' careers is desirable, with individual and group mentoring having an important role to play. Financial considerations will influence the provision of formal training but, as observed by Fullan (2001: 126): ‘learning in the setting where you work, or learning in context, is the learning with the greatest payoff because it is more specific (customized to the situation) and because it is social (involves the group). Learning in context is developing leadership and improving the organization as you go'. Learning contexts could include: • Visiting one another's setting to observe a particular project or initiative; • Monthly EYP support groups to discuss strategies and progress towards goals; • Peer coaching (or ‘buddying'), peer mentoring or coaching on a regular basis; • Peer study groups to investigate a particular issue or problem of practice; • Individualised mentoring led by more experienced or senior leaders within the setting or centre. Perspectives of practitioners working in a variety of settings When we surveyed a larger group of practitioners, we found that early childhood leadership meant different things to practitioners from different professions, working in different settings and with different initial qualifications. EYPs might be interested to learn that those with postgraduate qualifications tended to favour leaders as guides. Those with qualifications outside the education sector, for example, health, social welfare and library services, favoured leaders as strategists, whilst those with NVQ (or nursery nurse qualifications) tended to favour leaders as motivators. Moreover, those with postgraduate qualifications also favoured leaders as entrepreneurial and business- oriented. Those with postgraduate qualifications may thus value the role of coaching, mentoring and guiding or ‘moving staff on', whilst those withy NVQ qualifications may favour an empowering and motivating role. This contrasts with those with a range of ‘other' qualifications who emphasise leaders' strategic role in a fast-changing context. EYPs will also be interested in indicators of leadership potential at the career start. A large consensus supported dedication as the most important indicator of leadership potential. Interestingly older respondents tended to rank dedication as less important though it could be argued that they had already demonstrated their dedication by staying in the field! Also very important was regarded willingness to work with others, critical evaluation and trying out new ideas. Relationships were also established between the importance of dedication and the importance attached to delivering a quality service and engaging with ongoing professional development. The workforce was predominantly female and leaders were typically aged between 30 and 49 years. In terms of overall roles, responsibilities and characteristics, providing a quality service was regarded as of highest importance and entrepreneurial skills of less importance. Providing a quality service was associated with continuing professional development but, whilst the least qualified workers appeared to have opportunities for ‘on-the-job' training, for others, most training received was in the form of short courses and in-service training. In-depth discussions with leaders and staff illuminated attitudes towards entrepreneurial and business skills and, whilst it was recognised that availability, affordability and sustainability were linked, there was a deep unease about profit-making in a sector where many childcare workers were so poorly paid. In terms of culture and decision-making, it was observed that early childhood settings were typically hierarchically organised within the local authority, yet collaborative in culture and relationships. At the same time, it was clear that a fast-changing sector in a fast-changing world, led to changed relationships between early childhood organisations and the changing external environment. This led us to follow our leaders into their organisational contexts in order to examine at first-hand the impact of a changed world in which their traditional roles were dissolving. A typical day? When the leaders met to exchange highlights from a video-recorded day in their life, there was much laughter at the pace of their working day, their perceived tiredness and lack of traditional ‘holidays'. They celebrated their capacity to respond to the new national childcare strategy in the local context and noted that new career pathways were opening up, especially in children's centres. They characterised these changes in terms of changed local authority structures and increased bureaucracy that was not moving as fast as staff in settings, in terms of creating new dynamic patterns of relationships between individuals, teams and the organisation. Moreover, there was a sense that senior local authority personnel might not always understand what needed to be done. Increased multi-agency working created a number of challenges associated with information-sharing and leading a team that was not necessarily co-located, in the context of more fundamental differences of work culture, pay, conditions and professional ethos. Here leaders drew attention to the hidden, yet powerful value differences between professionals and between stakeholders that need to be made explicit and acknowledged before they can be addressed. Job and task overload was a recurrent feature, exacerbated by an increased emphasis on working indirectly with children and families through others in the front line. Here the notion of the ‘primary task' (Lawrence and Robinson, 1975) illuminated the challenge. This distinguishes between the ‘normative' task expected of those working in the institution, the ‘existential' task that staff believe they are carrying out and value, and the ‘phenomenal' task they are actually observed to be engaged in, whether they are aware of it or not. To give just one example, a private day nursery has policies and procedures for the baby room (normative task/s), on a staff training day young practitioners express frustration at the operation of the key worker system (reflecting the existential task) and the trainer invites them to describe what happens when a baby cries (phenomenal task). Ensuing discussion demonstrates a consensus that when a baby cries, whoever is nearest and available will pick up the baby and comfort her. Moreover, should the baby cry again in the near future, the same principle will operate: whoever is nearest and available will pick up the baby and comfort her (regardless of whether it is the key worker or the person who previously comforted the child). This opens up wider debate about the role of daycare and the key worker and could, or should they adopt what Elly Singer has described an ‘attachment pedagogy', that is, attempt to assume the role of a parent in a context that is clearly not the home and equally clearly does not involve the parent. As Hoyle (2004) has indicated, the optimal position is one where the normative primary task of an organisation and the existential task are in alignment and staff identify with, and believe in the task that they are employed to carry out. Where they are out of alignment, however, there could be resistant behaviour. A good example of this was the discomfort expressed by staff about business and entrepreneurial skills in the context of a profession they regarded as caring and nurturing. A core leadership task could therefore be described as one of keeping the primary task at the forefront of staff's minds and continuously reviewing and modifying in the light of changing external circumstances. Reviewing the journey First we aimed to identify, describe and analyse what leadership meant to key participants and noted organisations as traditional in structure and strategic decision-making, yet collaborative in culture and operational functioning. Staff experienced a strong sense of collegiality and a need for the pooling of initiative. Whilst there may be various traditional styles of leadership, there are also different leadership concepts held by organisations that are hierarchical or ‘distributed' and emerge from a group or network of individuals working together. Second, in terms of roles and relationships, characteristic of early childhood settings was the flatness of organisational structures, relative lack of role differentiation but with a move towards having only an indirect contact with children and families through other professionals and, thus an indirect effect on ECM outcomes in integrated settings. It is a reminder that generic leadership skills may inform us about the influence and processes of leadership but they offer no guidance on what the focus of influence should be. In short, new leaders are increasingly accountable for the performance of those under their charge and the outcomes of this practice. Thus it is important for the EYPs to consider how their leadership, learning, being healthy and staying safe are linked. Size of institution and hence overall levels of resourcing also influenced technical functions and responsibilities in our study, with private and voluntary sector leaders being seen to be carrying out their own administrative and management tasks. On the other hand, integrated centre leaders worked in larger organisations demanding highly specialised knowledge, functions and activities, within a single site or across multiple sites created different boundaries in leadership. By contrast, foundation stage leaders were able to work collaboratively at the team level with teaching colleagues, teaching assistants and other professionals in the setting, their task focused on the quality of teaching and learning within the setting. Third, in terms of core components of leadership, difference in views on leadership between professionals with different qualifications and professional heritages emerged. Perhaps at the end of the day, there are bound to be different types of leadership fit for different purposes in such a diverse sector. Fourth, exploration of leadership practice revealed the difficulty for leaders in stepping back and reflecting on their practice. It also suggested the need for early childhood practitioners to develop their own reflective and strategic skills to increase self-understanding, thinking about complex problems and looking for alternative routes to problem-solving. Fifth, in terms of leadership development, exploration of preparation required to maximise the effectiveness of early childhood leaders, suggests a need to extend the opportunity for all staff to have access to opportunities for leadership development. If distributed leadership is to be understood as an important property within relationships, there is a need for developing understanding of conjoint leadership. Based on the evidence of our project and the video materials created, opportunities for sharing experiences of other leadership situations could provide a foundation for more focused discussion of a learning organisation that draws upon team learning, organisation theory and change theory, as well as distributed models. Theory, however, provides one tool for analysing practice but also serves to reveal the need for wider debate about new models available. Where now? The range of children and communities, professionals and agencies and, hence, degree of specialisation, delegation and distribution of responsibility within settings varies considerably across the sector; It is unlikely that one model or a single approach will suit such a diverse sector; There is a need to have a better understanding of the relationship between different models of working and positive outcomes for children; There is an urgent need for more early childhood leadership training; There is also a clear need for early childhood leaders to develop and ‘bring staff on', that is, distribute leadership through the organisation; The EYP network can take the lead in mapping out their own career paths to date as well as positioning and preparing themselves for future leadership! References Bloom, P. J. (1997) Navigating the rapids: directors reflect on their career and professional development. Young Children, 52, (7), 32-38. Department of Education and Skills (2005) Every Child Matters: Next Steps. London: DfES. Fullan, M. (2001) Leading in a Culture of Change. San Francisco. CA: Jossey-Bass. Lawrence, W. G. and Robinson, P. (1973) An innovation and its implementation: issues of evaluation. Tavistock Institute of Human Relations : document no. CASR 1069 (unpublished). Cited in Miller, E. (1993) From Dependency to Autonomy: Studies in Organization and Change. London: Free Association. Books. Hoyle, L. (2004) From sycophant to saboteur - responses to organizational change. In C. Huffington, D. Armstrong, W. Halton, L. Hoyle J. Pooley (Eds.) Working Below the Surface: The Emotional Life of Contemporary Organizations ( pp. 87-106). London: Karnac Further reading If you want to find out more about early childhood leadership you might want to look at Carol Aubrey's text Leading and Managing in the Early Years (2007) London: Sage Publication. A research-based resource pack based on this work, entitled Reflecting on Early Childhood Leadership, with further activities and a DVD of early childhood leaders in action can be obtained from Anne Nelson at The British Association for Early Childhood Education (Early Education), 136 Cavell Street, London, E1 2JA.
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