Understanding of Key Leadership Capabilities and the Strategies you may use to Apply them in an Early Childhood Setting - Essay Example

LEADERSHIP CAPABILITIES Understanding of key leadership capabilities and the strategies you may use to apply them in an early childhood setting Yourname …………………. College/ course…………….. Date of submission …………. Introduction It is widely known that the very recent years have witnessed changes in the provision of and delivery of superior quality services to children and families. Though there are quite a number of different kinds of professions working in early child hood development, all such professionals continually need to be responsive to the accelerating changes of both demographic and social in nature. Leadership is a highly valued commodity and when it comes to the field of leadership in early child hood, it has many facets. It requires deep knowledge of the field, sincere willingness to bear the risks, and a vision that should go beyond individual programs and organizational settings. This piece of research paper discusses basic leadership capabilities and managerial strategies that are required to be applied in an early child hood leadership profession. This paper addresses three dimensions of management and leadership, they are staff motivation, team development and change management and attempts to relate them to the application of leadership capabilities in early childhood profession. Early Childhood leadership As Sciarra and Dorsey (2001) viewed, child care is a business and as such it needs a business leader (p. 5). Managers and leaders are generally expected to work in varieties of business fields, including banking, office administration, contracts, legislation, marketing etc. as such, early child hood educators and leaders are to understand the very basic business concepts of leadership and leadership perspectives so that they can easily interface with their peers. More successful early childcare leaders are those who have the leadership capabilities and they find themselves as more skilled, able and experienced than those who are not as successful as their counterparts are. Rodd (2006) quoted Katzenmayer and Moller as saying that leadership development is required as it’s an ‘awakening the sleeping giant’ (p. 9). Leadership is a significant human skill and personal ability that can improve program quality. Leaders are described as both born and made as they do appear to possess some special set of elusive qualities and skills, more often different in nature from person to person, and these are combined in to an ability of influencing others strategically to do what he wants others to do (Rodd, 2006, p. 12). Ebbeck and Waniganayake (2003, p. 8) stressed that early child hood leaders more than a teacher and critically addressed the concept that ‘they are teachers of young children’. Though some researchers have addressed them as teachers, early childhood professionals need varieties of qualities, skills and personal attributes and therefore they are managers, teachers, leaders, care-givers and mentors etc. Rather than solely depending on a specific leadership strategy, an early childhood leader should function according to his discretion. Capabilities of Early Childhood leaders Academicians in the field of management and corporate people have always asked what makes a good leader. As mentioned above, a leader is both born and made to be a leader, since he encompasses both quality and skills. As Sciarra and Dorsey (2001, p. 5) observed, effective early child hood leadership must be a goal oriented action and process and it should certain results to be obtained, including, a) increased productivity, b) more satisfied clients and c) improved financial position. Early childhood leaders are to ensure that children have better quality interactions with their respective teachers and their time is mostly spent on creating and enhancing child’s interest that is beneficial for improved learning. Early child hood teachers thus require to create an environment that children continue to develop their learning and other areas whereas leaders continue to develop professionally. Similarly, successful leaders are to look at families and students in order to assess and analyze how satisfied are they about the program. Moreover, better management and improved organizational setting would certainly result in improved financial position as well. For a professional who works in the early childhood development, he requires to be persistently knowledgeable about child psychology, early physical development, basic and child medical care, better parenting, child’s learning cycles and developmental stages etc. but, when it comes to a leader who works in the same field, he must be able to influence others to contribute to an agreed as well as expected goal to be achieved and satisfy general public to meet required quality standards. As Rodd (2006, p. 13) noted, leaders who work in the early childhood settings should also be able to balance the concern for work, tasks, quality and productivity with sincere concerns regarding general public, social relationship, people’s satisfaction, morale and social responsibility and ethics. Successful leaders behave in a particular strategic way to guarantee success and they are found to have certain leadership styles which they apply according to the situations. Therefore, a successful leader is capable of identifying, finding, designing and developing a right strategy and technique to manage the right situation in order to ensure a higher chance of success. OSullivan (2009, p. 8) described a study conducted by Professor Carol Aubrey of Warwick University and the finding that there is no any specific or single adult leadership style suitable for all types of early years provision. One of the major findings was that the most successful early childhood leaders are those who created a ‘participative culture and gave their staff an opportunity to exert bottom up influences on their own professional practice. Leaders are those who influence others, And as such early childhood leaders should be capable of influencing others through creating a participatory climate. Participatory environment within any organizational setting is very close to collaboration, cooperation, team work and inter-personal relationship and all these have been proven to impact success positively by increasing human resource productivity. Early Childhood leader as Staff Motivator Motivation through financial or non-financial incentives is always a critical element to successful management. Motivated workers are found to be increasingly productive than those who aren’t motivated. Leadership can be enhanced through training and the development of relevant leadership capabilities. Out of various leadership capabilities, motivating the staff seems to be one of the effective strategic tools to influence others more successfully. Lunenburg (2004) emphasized that there is widespread consensus among school administrators that motivation is a critical determinant of organizational performance (p. 110) and hence, early childhood leaders can help their organization achieve sustainable competitive advantage, improved financial success and increased customer satisfaction through effectively motivating the staff. Motivation is a process used by a manager or leader to stimulate the behavior of followers or subordinates in ways that can benefit the organization. According to Lunenburg (2004, p. 111), a leader’s motivation should comprise of three elements, that are efforts, persistence and direction. As far as early childhood development organization is concerned, satisfaction of children and families, performance of the organization and financial status are critical elements. All these elements will be positively impacted by motivation. Hughes, Ginnett and Curphy (2002, p. 242) described that motivation, satisfaction and performance are clearly related. Motivation helps employees work more and remain longer in the organization helping them to be turned to be highly productive. Being productive, motivated staff will be valuable assets of the organization and make help clients get satisfied with the program and work. The early childhood leaders thus require to be motivators of their staff in order to convert them to highly productive powerful asserts and to help the organization achieve its common and specific goals. Early Childhood leader as Team Developer A leader is a good team worker, active team developer and motivator to others to get involved in active team work. Team work fosters team development, which is essentially an important criteria for successful management. Whitaker, Whitaker and Lumpa (2008, p. 225) found the cultivating leadership is more about developing a good team. In developing the team, the early childhood leader should talk openly and honestly with new and existing team members about program directions and the leadership ways. In order to develop the team, the leader should depend on variety of strategic tools like one-on-one group discussion, learners forum etc. In developing the team, the leader should be able to find out potential strengths of each member, weaknesses of members if any and thus to search and find new members to be recruited in order to fill the gap of relevant potential abilities that people have to fulfill. An early childhood leader is also responsible for creating a climate of care, trust and respect among team members so that team members can be turned be more productive. Sciarra, Dorsey and Lynch (2009, p. 38-39) noted that the professional who works as early childhood leader should create a climate by demonstrating caring behavior, through effective measures to build a feeling of community and partnership. Good communication among the members, goal-oriented program direction, education and training program, collaboration and cooperation, organizational learning and retention of older workforce are some of the fruitful strategies that can certainly enhance team development and foster organizational performance. Members’ cohesiveness can be influenced by cooperative work setting between team members. Cooperation encourages acceptance and a feeling of spirit de corps and therefore it has been found to be essential in accomplishing of many tasks and goals (Gorton and Alston, 2009, p. 19). The early childhood leader is required to help team members work cooperatively in order to develop the team. In order to create a cooperative climate and behavior among team members, the leader should focus on creating an environment in which, Individual members in the team do understand the total tasks to be addressed, Tem members must recognize how each of them can contribute toward problem solving, Team members should be aware of the potential contributions of other group members, and Team members are also required to be aware of the need for cooperation in order to attain group goal. Early Childhood leader as Change Manager Change Management is relatively a young academic discipline, though the practical and pragmatically aspects have been very evident from early human history. Change is good, and it both a challenge and opportunity. Implementing a change and managing it effectively are greater challenges, but, management has wider opportunity of organizational success if the change could be managed well. In managing the change, resistance and managing the resistance are some of the very critical aspects that a change agent normally experiences. ‘Change’ brings reforms and thus it is more of an opportunity for the leader. When it comes to the early childhood leadership, the leader should be able to find what shall be changed and find out effective strategies that can help him implement the change effectively. Change is certainly one of the very significant strategic initiatives that an organizational leader is required to depend on in volatile business contexts (Thompson, 1993, p. 697) as a reaction to the external threats or a practical effort to utilize business opportunities. In a dynamic and changing business environment, business need change, and similarly, in today’s complex childcare contexts, childhood leaders are required to address change wherever it is possible and can be brought as an opportunity for further development. An early childhood leader is to incorporate a number of managerial functions including direction, planning, coordinating, organization and controlling. The leader should be a change manager and thus he functions through people, process, managerial techniques and strategies (Palmer, Dunford and Akin, 2009, p. 24). The early childhood leader requires his subordinates actively participated in the change process, technology to be used when and where so is required, and continuous process that the leader starts from change plan to the final stage of implementation and feedback. Jacobs (1997, p. 22) explained that change is an informed and participative process that results in doing business in relatively newer ways, helping the organization to be successful, for now and for future. As far as childcare is concerned, the mental settings of new generation is getting altered day by day. So change is somewhat necessary in the field. In order to address challenges of increased mental disability of new generation, radically changing child’s learning behavior, increased physical impacts, etc, the child care organizations and leaders are to find newer ways of effectively managing. So, they need reforms. While implementing the change, the workers and subordinates will be more likely to be resistant and that should first be managed well. Managing resistance to change is all about managing the change. Cooperation, effective communication, active participation, group discussion, delegation of authority, team playing etc are some of the strategies to manage resistance to change and thus to help the leader implement the change. In short, as a change manager, the early childhood leader should be able to address the relevance of change and convey the same to his people, manage the resistance to it and find better ways to get it successfully implemented. Conclusion This piece of research paper has addressed managerial concepts of leadership and early childhood leadership. The paper has highlighted some of the significant early childhood leadership capabilities, in relation to leader’s role as motivator, team developer and change manager. It concluded that an early childhood leader is more responsible than other leaders because child care organization’s areas of responsibilities are comparatively more challenging. 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