9 Leadership Skills Summary

Bringing it all Together

In this section we have examined how power is interwoven with leadership, introduced the current trend of stakeholders as sharing power and leadership in education for increased student and institutional success, described two leadership models, and examined many specific skills that you can practice as a leader in early care and education.  We introduced the reality that all of us are leaders in early care and education, and you have reflected on how your role in the field and in other work settings has created mental models for you depending on your position and perceptions.

We have introduced you to the collective leadership model as the one best suited for early care and education and offered some foundational skills you can choose to practice to promote that model.

We provided a scenario for each element of collective leadership earlier in this module. Can you see yourself in any of the scenarios? Might you, without knowing it, have been a contributor to collective leadership? Perhaps in a scenario like any of those written, you chose to use a leadership skill or behaviour to make things better for you, or for a colleague. We think you probably have done one or the other, and that as was stated earlier, you already possess some of the skills described here.

It is our hope that at this point you see yourself as a leader in early childhood care and education, no matter what your current role, and that the collective leadership model makes sense to you as an effective and satisfying model for building and growing successful, intentional stakeholders.

Whatever your current role is, we know you will continue to grow and develop. Take the skills and behaviours provided for you here and create a plan for using them, every day. Start small and track your progress as you see results. Take some time to reflect on what puzzles you in your working relationships, and look for some help from other resources. Weekly jotting in a notebook will keep you on track, and you will see your persistence paying off. We will be with you on your journey!

Attribution

Leadership: An Introduction to Leadership Skills in Early Childhood Care and Education in Leadership in Early Care and Education by Tammy Marino; Maidie Rosengarden; Sally Gunyon; and Tanya Noland published Open Oregon by under a CC BY-NC-SA license