Reconceptualising pedagogical leadership for quality in early childhood education: from individual dispositions to systemic creativity

Many workplace sectors now recognise the relationship between effective leadership and positive outcomes for clients and communities. This is also the case for early childhood education, yet there is only a limited understanding of the nature of this relationship. At the same time, and in line with the themes of this volume, research, theory, and professional development in leadership are moving away from leadership conceptualised as individual skills and dispositions, toward understanding leadership as the capacity to make sense of complex workplace environments and effect change at the organisational level.

This chapter presents one approach to transcending individualistic notions of leadership and developing leaders’ capacity to mobilise distributed workplace expertise in the interests of better outcomes. Methods and data are drawn from an Australian-UK research project called ‘Learning-rich leadership for quality improvement in early childhood education’, which employed a formative intervention informed by cultural-historical activity theory to develop new practices and theorisation of leadership in early childhood education. Key elements of the new theory are presented, supported by data from the project, to illustrate how leaders can learn to focus on organisational, rather than individual, capacity in early care and education settings.