Leadership in the Early Yearsr

As a leader within the Early years setting several skills and qualities need to be learnt and portrayed in order to achieve best practice and positive outcomes for all involved. As a leader having enthusiasm and motivation is a key asset .As a leader staff should want to aspire to you, you need to be there role model and lead by example this is supported by Catherine Aird who once said “If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning” If a leader is a horrible warning staff will not wish to follow there rules or ways of working, they will have little respect for the leader and may rebel causing negative practice. As a leader it is a key responsibility to be up to date with framework and policies such as EYFS (2008) and ensure staff are implementing this in to practice this complies with The department of Education who state “All providers are required to use the EYFS to ensure that whatever setting parents choose, they can be confident their child will receive a quality experience”

As a leader commitment and consistency are required to improve skills this can require a great deal of effort from staff and is suggested by Mass (1985) that only “a select few inspire extraordinary achievement” Qualities such as empathy, understanding, perseverance, communication and teamwork are beneficial to the role. Knowledge of team dynamics is an advantage to ensure the team bonds well and works towards goals. These skills can be built upon in time. People can learn to become better leaders which is supported by behavioural theories of leadership that suggests great leaders are made – not born and links in with relationship theories, known otherwise as transformational theories, that concentrate upon the connections formed between leaders and followers also seen as teamwork this again requires a leader to be a good role model.

When working upon and writing this assignment Ethical considerations were taken in to account and