Leadership in Early Childhood Education

Purpose:

The role of room leader is to work as part of a management team for providing professional management and leadership to the staff working within the playroom. The prime objective of the playroom leader is to ensure that the children associated receive the optimum standards of education and care.

The job in the mentioned field demands a full and relevant qualification in Early Years of Level three or more than that to ensure that the requirement of EYFS and Ofsted are rightly addressed for ensuring an ideal work experience within the busy nursery setting

What do I need to achieve?

High standards of education and care

Working as per regulatory requirements

Positive interaction with parents, staff, caregivers and even the children

Play room feeling adequately supported in their assigned job roles

Benefits of working of working within the current organization

Competitive salary

Generous holiday scheme

Discounted child care plans for parents

Continuous development and training

Employee loyalty scheme

Key responsibilities

Childcare and Education

Promoting high standards and quality within the playroom and the nurse, while fostering an environment for respect

Providing relevant and professional feedback to the caregivers and the parents about their kids

Make sure that the record of learning and continuous development are rightly maintained by the suitable staff

To look after and make sure to maintain the required standards of nursing with the senior management whenever necessary.

Providing the needed leadership and support to the staff working within the playroom for fostering a positive work environment

Properly deploy the staff and make sure that the needed standards are delivered within the playroom

Ensure that the provision within the nursery and practice followed are in compliance with the Early Years Foundation Stage

To make sure that there is a proper implementation of nursery carer procedures and allocating the children to their respective carers

The staff needs to follow the required safeguarding procedures and make sure that the safety provided to the children is of highest quality

Support the development of good practices such as inclusion and addressing cultural diversity while answering the needs of special children

Implementing and supporting others to deliver optimum quality of care as per the current guidelines and practices

Foster a highly professional working environment with regulatory bodies and local authority departments

Health and safety

Embrace shared responsibility related to health safety and adopt approach to cleanliness through the playroom and nursery

Stick to the required safety and health policies and procedures for safety measures

Be highly aware of the security and emergency procedures

Operational

Support the manager of the nursery and the hired staff during the course of inspection by authoritative regulatory bodies and help in the implementation of provided recommendations

Promote the nursery to the potential customers and current parents

Staff

Supervise and support the staff working within the playroom with their daily activities

Mentor and support both the student and the staff with their daily activities

Mentor and support the staff and students

Be responsible for taking proactive participation in self development related activities and appraisals

In collaboration with senior management, identify the need and address the needs for individual training of the staff working in the playroom

Create a positive and open working environment for the staff

General

Stick to the current company policies and procedures

Make sure that the policies related to diversity and equality are maintained

Complete the duties with reasonable understanding as per the request by line management

Assume additional responsibilities as per the requirements

Make sure that the staff form and maintain friendly relations that is highly professional in nature

Leadership is termed as new vision for a group that follows a leader to progress towards a new direction. Management on the other hand works on controlling and directing the resources in a group as per the established values and principles. As stated by Otte, Konradt and Oldeweme (2018, p. 760), leadership demands an individual to support, develop, motivate and encourage the staff to perform high standards of care. Working with young children is an enriching job and a sound leadership quality is needed to direct the children in the right way.

However, it is of prime importance to ensure that team member’s proactive roles to provide effective team performance. As influenced by Larsen (2017, p. 110), mutual cooperation, good communication coupled with support and trust are few things that can work on building an effective work environment. As opined by Armstrong and Landers (2018, p. 165), mutual cooperation with the staff can promise effective and high quality of care standard to the children. In similar vein, mutual cooperation is a much needed attribute to enhance the leadership exercised by the playroom leader.

According to Seidle, Fernandez and Perry (2016, p. 610), team roles are often perceived as a way of ascertaining behavioural weaknesses and strengths of employees within the place of work. The strong point of the mentioned perspective is that it guarantees that each important role within the team is carried out by the members. Kiweewa et al. (2018, p. 277) further added the fact that if team members are allowed to perform certain activities they wish to, and then they would exhibit high levels of interest in performing the mentioned activities. A well balanced team is often perceived as a risk and would predictably ask for limited attentiveness from the management. It however, comes with a set of limitations. The Belbin’s roles represent functions and tasks within the domain of autocratic management and are not based on personality types or preferences related to thinking. As stated by Salih and Draucker (2019, p. 977), team activities are highly subjective in nature and are not dependent on thinking preferences. The chosen model does not take into consideration the existing hierarchical connection between two individuals as certain individuals may not be fond of one another and may not provide successful work results. The Belbin model was focused on the upper management executives and could not be applied to other working classes. This further goes on without saying that this model cannot be applied to different cultures. As per the Tuckman’s stages of development, it becomes important to understand that every team is subjected to a series of development. As stated by Murphy, Curtis and McCloughen (2019, p. 1148), these phases were important for facing challenges and tackling problems.

Barriers to success can help in overcoming the potential problems and emerging out as a successful team. To be a successful team, one needs to take suitable advantage of the strength and skills of individual employees. However, these differences can provide barriers related to effective communication. Some of the barriers that the team can overcome to function together successfully are unproductive communication. Various barriers within the team can be overcome to function together successfully are unproductive ways of communication. Different approaches result in individuals being delegated the responsibilities which they cannot carry out by themselves. As influenced by Worthy, Dawson and Tavakoli (2020, p. 69), teams fail to make consensus decisions when needed and fail to understand the role of other team members.

Group norms can affect the development of a team through an individual’s idea on the exact ways to behave within the group. Every individual has their own way of working and a perception related to normal behaviour, a deviation from the same can lead to conflict within the team. As influenced by Ricard et al. (2017, p. 139), people tend to react differently when placed within a group and contribute to the team dynamics. People are often seen to exhibit caution and not say what is in their mind. The gap in communication can work on wasting a lot of time. On the other hand, some individual members may prefer to work in team for better rates of productivity

The aspect of conflict emerges from perceived or real opposition to one’s actions, general interests or innate desires. As stated by Fiaz, Su and Saqib (2017, p. 149), conflicts may occur externally or internally between individuals or groups, leading to an environment that may cause frustration and occasionally anger. On the contrary Asrar-ul-Haq and Kuchinke (2016, p. 55), pointed out the fact that conflict resolution can provide positive results for the team. The skills pertaining to conflict management are in high demand. Conflict is often successfully managed by reaching a proper agreement that satisfies the needs of individuals. As stated by Genç (2017, p. 515), the term constructive conflict is used to describe the event where benefit exceeds the cost generating mutually beneficial and productive work environment. Constructive conflict emerges as a process of redefining the strengths for the benefit of the company or abiding by the organizational goal. Destructive flow on the other hand narrowly defines the rigid goals, producing negative outcomes. The individuals linked with the mentioned form of decision making is often less flexible and perceive that the other party opposing them must be defeated

The implementation of constructive and healthy conflict is a prime component used for describing highly functional teams. As stated by Decman et al. (2018, p. 1000), conflict emerges from differences in perspective and team members should be open enough to understand the differences without causing any potential disruption. Understanding and acknowledging the difference in opinion can be termed as a good way of resolving conflicts. As influenced by Ruben and Gigliotti (2017, p. 25), it is critical to maintain a healthy balance between constructive opinion to remove the chances of conflict. Getting to and maintaining the stated balance demands well developed skills for resolving the potential conflicts. As stated by Apsorn, Sisan and Tungkunanan (2019, p. 640), resolving the conflict can promise a better working environment.

Trust and respect are the two main things for fostering positive relationships at the workplace. In similar vein, it is important to understand that the workplace is all about the relationship between two people at work (Ruben and Gigliotti, 2016, p.468). As stated by relationship at work is built over time and often demands respect. There is a gradual development of trust among the caregiver and the child that demands patience and time. Without the use of patience the child will be difficult to handle and the caregiver will be at a loss of words. Thus, it becomes important to understand the fact that developing trust and accountability within a team can be done by enriching the channels of communication and establishing trust.

Having team members relates to superior proposal. People are willing to take up proactive measures in order to achieve something. The key to success within the team is that everyone operates on a single passion to bring about success to the business organization. As influenced by Darics (2020, p. 29), a team can emerge out as a successful entity if the individual members are aware of the success of the whole team. Encouraging the team members to make use of shared vision and output can work on establishing a sense of purpose for the team. Offering rewards and recognition can be termed as one of the greatest ways of fostering shared vision within the team. The mentioned intervention acts as a motivation for the employees and motivates them to work harder. Finally, it is important to delegate the possible responsibilities. This not only means less work of the managers, rather it acts as a great influence booster among the people within whom the responsibility is delegated. The mentioned intervention can be termed as just the right way for ensuring that people with suitable leadership qualities are identified and rightly implemented to ensure collaborative working environment. On the other hand, Nayani et al. (2018, p. 130), argued the fact, during the course of relationship and trust development, the leader may come across an individual employee who may possess impeccable leadership quality and ensure productive environment within the workplace.

There exists a series of approaches that can be implemented for sharing skills between the team members. The sharing of skills helps the staff to communicate while preventing the possible loss of valuable knowledge and assets between the team members. As influenced by Ricard et al. (2017, p. 138) knowledge management can help in providing the expertise required by the staff members needed to perform their daily professional tasks. Information and knowledge such as the use of staff forum or implementation of intranet can act as a basic way of sharing knowledge between the employees. As well as the policies, information and procedures employees have access to keep themselves updated. The staff forum is additionally perceived as a great platform to share ideas and information. This kind of skill and knowledge transfer can benefit in ensuring progress of the team.

Blame culture is termed as a set of attitudes within the organization that is marked by the unwillingness to accept responsibility or embrace risk due to the fear of criticism. In case of managers, the use of no blame culture helps in promoting future learning that furthers fuels tolerance of mistakes within the business organization, provided that the employees learn from their mistakes. The mentioned action is often linked with empowerment and learning where employees are responsible for making their own decisions. As stated by Darics (2020, p. 28), no blame culture grants its own specific set of issues as they need to avoid the desire to guide and tell the employees what they need to do for reaching their goals. This step is often perceived as time consuming.

An employee who is adequately empowered, is free to make mistakes and learn from the same by evaluating the possible outcomes and discussing the ongoing issues with the fellow employees. For the managers, the use of no blame culture can be further implemented to make sure that there is a scope for future learning, by considering the probable issues at work. As influenced by Apsorn, Sisan and Tungkunanan (2019, p. 639), several disputes are often kept unaddressed as few individuals make use of no blame approach to address the possible issues. Whereas, in the mentioned blame approach, the focus is not concentrated on the possible issues and finding the way forward and learning from the past mistakes, rather it works on redirecting and avoiding the blame

Individuals are uniquely programmed to adopt no blame approach. As with most responses to conflict, people tend to notice them when they have been subjected to destructive situations, forcing them to make use of no blame cultural approach. In the domain of no blame approach the mistakes are perceived as probable opportunities to learn new things and gain new insights for doing the task. As stated by Darics (2020, p. 29), several opportunities are lost due to the increasing prevalence of blame culture. Thus, as conclusively stated the blame approach often creates a greater manifestation, ensuring loss of trust. Processes and systems continue to prosper with the adoption of no blame culture at the workplace.

A proactive system approach can be implemented where the risks are actively controlled and managed. Risks may be financial, operational or clinical. As stated by Nayani et al. (2018, p. 130), a risk management program is designed to protect the staff and the parents through the practice of quality care within a safe environment. A culture of accountability can be rightly achieved through systematic steps such as risk evaluation with suitable formation of risk management strategies. These activities could be further complemented through the use of awareness programs that can be used to identify the possible issues in the implementing corrective changes before they can create a negative impact on the staff. The staff can be further encouraged to openly discuss the potential risks within the no blame culture, irrespective of the cause.

Task oriented leaders are focused on getting the task done and sometimes can be autocratic in nature. As influenced by Ricard et al. (2017, p. 138) the task oriented leaders are seen to take proactive measures to plan and structure the work. The leaders are additionally seen to perform tasks such as forming and maintaining work standards. The advantage of task oriented leadership makes sure that the deadlines are met and is especially useful for the team members who fail to meet the deadlines. On the other hand, task oriented leaders do not think about the well being of the team and the mentioned approach can make the employees suffer due to their flawed approach autocratic leadership can lead to motivation and retention issues. Bureaucratic leadership works on working as per the pre-determined set of rules (Seidle, Fernandez and Perry, 2016, p. 610). The leaders in the mentioned context follow strict rules and make the employees follow the same set of rules. The leadership style makes sure that the employees are fully functional and the level of productivity is optimum. The charismatic style of leadership concentrates on influencing the employees through the use of influence of personality and persuasion. Charismatic leaders are often seen to motivate their followers and get things done to improve how certain tasks can be improved.

Democratic style of leadership works on making sure that individual employees are seen to take part in daily tasks and present their opinions. The members are highly engaged in the process, encouraging a high level of creativity. Team members tend to have a high level of job satisfaction. The democratic style of leadership provides a slow decision making process but the outcome is rewarding. On the other hand, Laissez Faire leadership is termed as a delegative leadership where the group members are allowed to work as per their decisions. However, this kind of leadership leads to a limited level of productivity among the group members. On the other hand, people oriented leadership is solely focused on developing, supporting and organizing the people within a team (Kiweewa et al. 2018, p. 277). However, the disadvantage associated with the mentioned style of leadership is that sometimes the leaders are highly invested and may ignore the core competencies. Transformational leadership; here the team works to identify the possible need of change and create a vision for guiding the change through inspiration and executing the change with tandem efforts. The transactional style of leadership promotes compliance by followers through implementation of punishment and rewards. The mentioned mode of leadership can provide effective results as employment is highly productive (Salih and Draucker, 2019, p. 977).

When I began my work as a room leader in a nursery, I tried to make use of participative style of working. I did work with staff and had a good relationship with my fellow employees. However, I quickly realised the fact the type of leadership I followed and implemented may not be suitable in all scenarios. Some can take potential advantage of friendship and distance themselves. I change my approach based on the situation. I thrive from constant communication with the team members, as I feel that the experience is highly rewarding for me. My personal perspective goes beyond the point of using communication only as a mode of interaction.

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