A Critical Examination of Effective Leadership in Early Childhood Education

In this conceptual article, the issues and insights in leadership are examined in the context of ECE settings. This is a unique field with a predominantly female workforce, and the issue of making a distinction between leadership and management needs to be considered. It is important to develop an understanding of the concept of leadership and identifying the potential challenges in defining the concept in this sector. Relevant literature thus provides theoretical, practical and research-informed evidence to explore the issues in leadership models and effective approaches to support children's learning. This article paid close attention to two key models: distributed leadership and pedagogical leadership. Further discussion regarding these two models addresses the key characteristics and factors that are essential for effective leadership in the settings in England. Despite the challenges faced when applied these two modules to contexts, positive notions of effective leadership are analysed as sharing, collaboration, knowledge exchange, and reflective learning. This article argues that an integrated practice of distributed pedagogical leadership appears to be a useful approach for enacting effective leadership in practice.