Leading Early Childhood - Essay Example

According to (Aubrey, 2011), leaders perceive their responsibility as spanning from their own to their staff’s development. In the past, the role of leaders in staff development, and especially in early childhood did not have much emphasis. However, in the recent past, this has taken center stage. Aubrey (2011) views this as having been necessitated by changing expectations. Leadership role is all about ‘quality of staff training’ (Aubrey, 2011, p. 45). According to Aubrey (2011), countless hindrances have derailed this, ranging from policies and procedures, as well as inspections.

In the changing world of today, Aubrey (2011) explains that leaders and staff hold clarified views concerning decision making. In this regard, however, it emerges that all participants in this field including the child ‘become involved to some extent in the decision making’ (p. 34). However, she forwards interesting evidence on how people with varying initial qualification and approaching this sector from varied routes, may hold differing opinions on early childhood leadership as well as diverse attitudes on aspects of their roles.

This serves to demonstrate the degree to which staff development is essential, since, looking at pedagogical leadership; the teacher emerges as a crucial decision maker. Effective leadership has been impacts greatly on a child’s learning. Leadership is also central to the overall success of a school. In this light, therefore, the quality of this leadership should be cultivated and improved. In the Early Childhood setup, leadership is perceived to flow from top downwards. However, some contributors in this field will argue that leadership is more followers oriented, especially in regard to children; than leader oriented.

This is a credible hypothesis according to Berthelsen, Brownlee, & Johansson, (2009), who view children as being the consumers in the training process. The findings produced by Aubrey (2011) sets several leadership