Dialogical conceptualisations of leadership in social enterprise early years group

ABSTRACT

The article presents an investigation of how Early Years leadership is conceptualised by frontline staff in the context of a social enterprise nursery group in London, England. Moving beyond academic splits in the conceptualisation of Early Years leadership, it considers how those in practice make sense of leadership in the complex and fragmented Early Years sector in England. A diverse sample of 18 staff members across four nurseries developed conceptualisations of Early Years leadership through reflective dialogue. Thematic analysis suggested the following four facets in their conceptualisations of leadership: 1) being hands-on, warm and non-hierarchical, 2) renewing passion through a culture of sharing, 3) committing to a strong sense of social purpose and 4) acting with optimism in difficult contexts. We argue that these themes respond directly to the difficult balance of pedagogical, business and social needs encountered in the Early Years sector. Our main contribution though is the emphasis on leadership as a dialogical construct made and re-made in context and the implications of this for practice-based leadership development in the sector.

KEYWORDS:

• Leadership
• social enterprise
• leadership development
• social justice

Introduction

Models of leadership depend on context. The Early Years (EY) sector in England is made up of a complex and diverse range of organisations including private, charitable, social enterprise and state-maintained provision. The diversity influences how we think about leadership in the sector, with business, social and pedagogical models of leadership all playing a part. In social enterprise nurseries, where social impact must be combined with financial sustainability, this intersection is even more relevant. This article seeks to offer insights into the conceptualisations of leadership that emerge in the context of a successful social enterprise nursery group, the London Early Years Foundation (LEYF), and to see how this might in turn influence leadership as it is understood and enacted across the sector.

LEYF, now made up of 39 nurseries across London, was born out of the Westminster Health Society, originally set up in 1903 to help children living in poverty. With an increasing focus on making social change through nursery provision, in 2006, LEYF became a social enterprise. This article explores how staff working in LEYF develop their understanding of leadership through ongoing dialogue and construct a new kind of EY leader. We argue that the dynamic model of leadership that arises in this context has relevance across the EY sector in England and globally because the need to combine business, social and pedagogical agendas is characteristic of many EY settings, whether they are officially a social enterprise or not.

The article begins with an overview of different leadership models in EY and the capacity of each to combine business, social and pedagogical agendas. We outline the methodology of our research into the dialogical conceptualisations of leadership that are at work in LEYF. We highlight four key principles of leadership that emerged in dialogue with LEYF staff. Our dialogue suggests that leadership in this context involves 1) being hands-on, warm and non-hierarchical, 2) renewing passion through a culture of sharing, 3) committing to a strong sense of social purpose and 4) acting with optimism in difficult contexts. Beyond these context-specific principles, we highlight the need to understand leadership as dynamic and dialogic and to design programmes of leadership development in response to this.

Conceptualisations of leadership in EY

Since 1990s, the early years sector has drawn on models of leadership that have originated in business contexts (Nicholson et al. 2020; Osgood 2004). Such models tend to position leadership as something that is cultivated through individuals’ traits and/or behaviours. The vision of the charismatic entrepreneur as leader is particularly relevant in EY sectors that rely on private business provision in a context of scarce resources (Campbell-Barr and Leeson 2016).

Such models of leadership in EY have been criticised on the basis that they downplay the importance of relationships and communities in leading effective EY practice. Business models are seen as prioritising ‘personality traits of competitiveness and assertiveness … as more desirable than collegiality and consultative practice’ (Campbell-Barr and Leeson 2016, 50). There has been a recognition internationally of the need to move away from such models and to turn towards more relational conceptualisations of leadership (Heikka and Hujala 2013; Heikka, Waniganayake, and Hujala 2012), to look instead for models of leadership that are ‘more pedagogical, relational, holistic, and focused on learning and caring’ (Campbell-Barr and Leeson 2016, 50).

Although it is generally recognised that there has been a paradigm shift in EY leadership theories, away from business models towards relational conceptualisations (Northouse 2015), we must simultaneously recognise that business models of leadership have been helpful to some EY sectors around the world in building the sense of professionalism among the EY workforce and elevating the status of the profession (Rodd 2006), as well as providing a simple framework supporting the emergence of more (urgently needed) leadership development in the EY sector.

Following from the relational principles of the new paradigm of leadership in EY (Northouse 2015), distributed leadership has emerged as a key focus in many accounts of EY leadership. Distributed leadership involves ‘collaboration, interaction and interdependence’ (Campbell-Barr and Leeson 2016, 57). On an international stage, the work of Manjula Waniganayake has played a critical role in highlighting the potential for organisations to be driven forward through many leaders who each contribute their own areas of expertise and experience.

Distributed leadership in EY has been supported and mentioned in various policy initiatives in England. It has been linked, for example, to the concept of ‘pedagogical leadership’, which is the capacity of any individual in an organisation – regardless of the official role they have or the place that they occupy in the managerial hierarchy – to drive forward the pedagogy of the EY setting (O’Sullivan 2015). In the English context, pedagogical leadership was a key aspect of the development of the Early Years Professional Status (EYPS), which has since been replaced with the Early Years Teacher Status (EYTS). McDowall Clark (2012) showed how those qualifying for EYPS worked as ‘change agents’, contributing towards incremental changes, predominantly in culture, through supportive, non-confrontational interactions.

Similarly, Murray and McDowall Clark (2013) highlighted how leadership in EY organisations can be seen as operating from a strong sense of shared purpose rather than as a consequence of positional leadership. They conceptualised this kind of leadership as ‘participative pedagogy’, highlighting three key aspects of passionate care, trusting relationships and community leadership.

When leadership is conceptualised with an emphasis on relationships, emotional literacy and context, leadership development is realised differently. Rather than a list of competencies or characteristics on a rating scale, deep reflection becomes key to leadership development. Nicholson and Kroll (2015), for example, advocate the use of structured oral inquiry as a means for developing leadership among EY professionals. In this approach, leadership is seen through a lens of intersectional identities – as something that is as diverse and multi-faceted as those practising leadership (Nicholson and Maniates 2016). This approach to leadership development positions reflexivity at the heart of leadership. It involves recognition of the political context of EY including the chronic under-investment in the EY workforce and how inattention to social categories of gender and ethnicity has led to limitation of opportunities for individuals in the sector. Consciousness-raising becomes the starting point for a meaningful leadership response (Woodrow and Busch 2008). Collaborative oral inquiry, making intersectionality explicit, is a practical means through which leadership development can support consciousness-raising and community mobilisation in the EY workforce.

In their review of leadership conceptualisations across EY, Nicholson et al. (2020) highlight a general failure to engage with the social justice imperative of EY provision. They argue that it is impossible to construct models of leadership in EY without thinking about the overarching aims and values of EY. If we take a social justice approach to EY – understanding its impact in terms of generating equity between children and families across society – then, they argue, this has consequences for the enactment of leadership and must have centre stage in how we conceptualise leadership.

As an aim of EY and a principle underpinning leadership in EY, social justice is complex. Embedding social justice in conceptualisations of leadership requires discussions about what constitutes social justice, and these are far from straightforward. Many approaches to EY have worked on a deficit model of childhood, in which children who are seen as socially disadvantaged are targeted by an EY system that will help to ‘bring them up’ to the same level as their peers with social advantage. Such an approach ignores the ‘funds of knowledge’ and ‘funds of identity’ (Esteban-Guitart and Moll 2014) that all individuals bring to institutions of formal learning. We need awareness of diversity and the power dynamics that are inherent in the social realities of diversity to underpin all aspects of day-to-day practice. It is not enough, however, to engage in diversity-informed practice but ignore the urgent need for systemic reform to enable greater social mobility. We agree with the editors of ‘Courageous Leadership in Early Childhood Education’ (Long, Souto-Manning, and Vasquez 2016) that social justice is the joining together of a commitment to diversity informed practice alongside striving for improvements in the system that will help to prepare all children to be part of and to build a more equitable future.

Our stance and our research questions

For LEYF as an organisation, all of the models and conceptualisations of leadership described above are relevant. LEYF makes use of competency-based models, it prides itself on the vitality of diversity, relationships and community-building in its visions of leadership and it puts a shared sense of social purpose at the heart of everything it does. In this sense, LEYF is not unusual. Although the tensions may be particularly apparent in the context of a social enterprise, where there is both a financial and a social imperative, many EY organisations are striving to balance business and social needs and therefore make use of (and creatively develop) various visions of leadership. We focus on how a diverse range of professionals in LEYF think and talk about leadership and what we can learn from these dialogues. Our research question is therefore: ‘How do professionals in a social enterprise EY setting conceptualise leadership?’

Methodology

Research approach

The study was conducted from an interpretivist perspective with an emphasis on subjectivity and dialogue throughout. Our focus was on people’s experiences and understandings of leadership rather than attempting to capture or measure leadership as an objective phenomenon. Having said this, we are interested in developing an understanding of leadership in order to effect change and improvement in EY practice. Thus, we are engaging closely with the experiences of others in order to draw useful conclusions that can be practically applied.

We have a mixed insider–outsider relationship with the research. June O’Sullivan, as the CEO of LEYF, is closely caught up in the day-to-day enactments of leadership in the organisation. She is the author of the multi-dimensional leadership framework that the organisation uses formally and, of course, has an interest in sustaining the organisation’s positive reputation. On the other hand, Mona Sakr is an academic researcher without a formal relationship to LEYF and a more general interest in leadership across the sector. She conducted the interviews that are the focus of this article and carried out the first level of analysis. However, the final conclusions drawn and reported were developed through dialogue between the co-authors, and it is important to recognise that they represent a particular ‘take’ on what was said by the participants. Since we are interested in inviting further dialogue about context-specific conceptualisations of leadership across the sector, rather than attempting to define any objective truths, we describe our positionality as something to be aware of, rather than as an obstacle in building useful arguments and points for consideration.

Dialogues were of course shaped by far more than just professional role. Identities are hard to ‘sum up’ or ‘pin down’ but we offer some key insights into the intersectionality of Mona Sakr who conducted the research dialogues in this study. She is 34, a mum of three young children, white-appearing though actually of mixed Egyptian and English heritage. She was born in London and speaks with an inner-city London accent. Some of these details were explicitly referenced as part of conversations before or after the recorded dialogues (questions about the provenance of names is a good example of how this might become relevant) and sometimes they were not. In each interaction, there were points of opening alongside potential barriers, and these were interwoven with the intersectionality of both researcher and participant. While it is impossible to pinpoint particular ways in which identities shaped the recorded dialogues, we must note that had these dialogues been with another person, quite different responses may have emerged. We embrace this as an essential aspect of our interpretivist approach.

Methods

The research centred on 18 semi-structured interviews across four LEYF nurseries. The interviews were designed to support authentic dialogue about leadership, so they were more like conversations than formal interviews, underpinned by two questions common across the dialogues: ‘What does it mean to be a leader in Early Years?’ and ‘What does it mean to be a LEYF leader?’. They typically lasted between 15 and 30 minutes. Interviews were audio recorded and transcribed.

Participants

Eighteen staff members of LEYF were interviewed for this research across four LEYF nurseries, diverse in terms of intake and representative of how the LEYF social enterprise model works, and role within the LEYF group. Nursery A is in a predominantly affluent area and turns a profit. Nursery B and Nursery C are larger nurseries with a more mixed intake, with some children on funded places and others occupying paid places. Nursery D is a nursery that delivers high social impact, meaning that all of the children are accessing funded hours of childcare, further subsidised by LEYF so that children can have lunch and a longer time at the nursery. Nursery D therefore runs at a loss.

We selected and recruited a wide range of participants with a diversity of experiences. There were four participants from Nursery A, four participants from Nursery B, seven participants from Nursery C and three participants from Nursery D. The participants ranged from two participants in their first year of working with LEYF and with no previous childcare experience, to two nursery managers who had been with LEYF for more than 20 years. Most of the interviewees were ‘teachers’ (the label assigned in LEYF to all frontline staff), but some had additional responsibilities, including room leader, duty manager and deputy manager. Three nursery managers were part of the study. The interviewees held qualifications at different levels, and some were working towards a further level of formal qualification with LEYF’s support.

Sixteen of the interviewees were women and two were male; across LEYF as an organisation, 89.4% of professionals are women. We did not ask individual participants to record their ethnicity. Across LEYF though, 52% of professionals are Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) and 50% of those in management roles are BAME. Teachers in LEYF generally live locally to the nursery in which they work and come from the same diverse communities that the children come from. They often speak the languages of the children and the families they serve and/or attend places of worship attended by children and families. Many of the professionals bring their own child to the nursery in which they work, paying 50% of the full fees.

The purpose of the sample diversity was to understand better how leadership manifested and resonated through different layers of the organisation and was made sense of from different perspectives and in relation to different experiences. The approach to data analysis was intentionally sensitive to both diversity and commonalities. This means that the findings from the research were not filtered on the basis of how many participants had made relevant comments but rather were determined on the basis of the insights that individual responses, and comparison between responses, provided.

Ethical considerations

All participants provided informed consent to be involved in the research study. The purpose and procedure of the study was explained to them verbally by the interviewer, and they were also given a participant information sheet to read through. They were reassured that their participation was completely voluntary and that they were free to withdraw at any time. It was also made explicit that what they said in the interview would have no bearing on their work within the organisation – that they should feel free to communicate what they wanted to communicate without concern for their employment. If the individual was happy to participate on these terms, they completed a written consent form. Of the 19 potential participants to whom the study was explained in this way, 18 decided to participate.

All interview audio recordings and transcripts were kept confidential and steps were taken to maintain anonymity of the participants. Analysis has focused on transcription of the audio recordings so that participants are not identifiable through their voice. Codes have been used to identify participants and nurseries. Having said this, limits to anonymity arise particularly for the nursery managers who took part in the research since they are recognisable through the description of the nurseries offered above. Quotes from these individuals were therefore checked with the nursery managers to ensure that they were happy for these to be shared despite the limits to anonymity.

Data analysis

Following transcription, we broadly followed the process of inductive thematic analysis outlined by Braun and Clarke (2006, 2019), identifying keywords in transcripts, developing codes from the basis of the keywords and then grouping codes together to build themes. We moved back and forth several times between the analytical categorisations (i.e. the emerging thematic map) and the transcriptions. This was a collaborative process between the authors, with each author working independently through the process of thematic analysis (building up levels of keywords, codes and themes) and then sharing the findings from the analysis with each other. Through this collaborative approach, we developed the validity of our themes, since they had to make sense through each of our lenses on the research. However, it is important to note how our own understanding of the world and the data influenced the emergence of our themes (described by Braun and Clarke 2019, as ‘reflexive thematic analysis’). Throughout this process, we returned iteratively to the data in order to explain to each other our interpretations of the themes that had emerged from our own analysis. It was important to us that there was an interpretation of the data that, while very much dependent on the interpretive lens of the researchers, was still deeply committed to sharing the voices of participants. The length of the quotes chosen to illustrate ideas is testament to this intention to hear the voices of participants – through substantial quotes, we hope to develop a stronger sense of what the participants think, feel and wish to express.

Findings

Through the analysis of the interviews, four themes emerged that are discussed below. These are principles or aspects of leadership that are important in the dialogical conceptualisations developed through the interviews. They are as follows:

1. being hands-on, warm and non-hierarchical

2. renewing passion through a culture of sharing

3. committing to a strong sense of social purpose

4. acting with optimism in difficult contexts

Each theme is explained and illustrated through quotes from the participants.

Being hands-on, warm and non-hierarchical

All interviewees related leadership to behaviours associated with warmth and inclusivity. This resonates with the relational conceptualisations of leadership outlined in the background sections of this article.

When asked about leadership in the context of LEYF specifically, one nursery manager expressed her immediate impressions:

I see warm, friendly, engaging. I see passionate … I see diversity as well, which is important, and there’s lots of, there’s differences and there’s something new that’s creeping in, there’s an aspect of … I feel as a woman that you can share things … it was a female leadership which gives leadership a different feel. It’s strong and it’s innovative, it brings in the creativity and it allows risk. (P4)

In explaining this further, P4 offered the example of sharing a Maya Angelou poem with professionals across the organisation – a poem she felt was deeply relevant to the identity of EY professionals and the work they do with children and families. Sharing this poem via email with other nursery managers in her reflective leadership group was a social risk that then allowed for a stronger sense of belonging and connection. This manager relates this act to ‘female leadership’, and this is important given that some applications in EY of business models of leadership have attempted to write out those characteristics of leadership that are most often associated with women (Jironet 2019) – social warmth, for example – while this dialogical conceptualisation wholeheartedly writes them back in.

Participants commented that there was often no clear demarcation between those who were leaders and those who were not. All were encouraged to see themselves as leaders. On a practical level, this was embodied through the tendency of managers at different levels in the organisation to get ‘stuck in’ and to exude approachability. The following three comments are from a selection of nine that specifically alluded to approachability:

… at the conference I noticed that you couldn’t really tell who was who, the managers were some of the most excitable. (P2)

I think even when we go on training, when we’re getting inducted, we’ve always been told, look this isn’t a hierarchy, it’s everyone can contribute ideas. They actually welcome that, they’ve always said if you see something, if you think something, please speak up. If something’s wrong, if something’s going well, always do it because that contributes. (P10)

I was shocked when my manager came in and she was cleaning the table, she was doing everything, and I was thinking to myself ‘you’re the manager, you’re supposed to be in the office’ (laughs). So we all do things like that, everybody works together as a team, and I thought that was really really nice … because I’ve been in nurseries since I was 17 and I’ve never once seen that until I came to LEYF … everybody helps everybody … (P11)

There was a feeling that LEYF leadership was special because everyone, no matter how high in the hierarchy, would be hands-on when it came to the day-to-day frontline work. In this distribution, the day-to-day work gained value, importance and ultimately its centrality in everything the organisation did. Distributed leadership worked in both directions though. So as well as positional leaders ‘mucking in’, collaborative leadership developed particularly in the space of pedagogical planning. Meetings were described as spaces of collaborative reflection and innovation, where positional leaders (e.g. the nursery manager or room leader) asked more questions than they gave answers. Not everything was shared in the same way. No participants mentioned an involvement in budget management for example. This seemed to be a role and responsibility assumed by the nursery manager. Thus, it is important to note that what emerged from the dialogues was not a complete dismantling of power structures and systems but rather less importance placed on hierarchies and positional leadership than may be the case in other contexts.

Renewing passion through a culture of sharing

Some staff articulated leadership in LEYF as the capacity to connect individual members of the community, allowing them to share ideas, problems and stories. For example, one teacher described how team meetings and cross-organisation professional reflection groups were spaces for collaborative reflection and problem-solving:

They have this situation with people sharing even the bad stuff so you say ‘well how do you deal with it?’ Because I have situations like this and I’m a bit stuck and I don’t know what to do … (P6)

However, the culture of sharing went beyond problems and ideas. It included stories that were more about reconnecting with the purpose of the organisation. For one of the nursery managers this was a significant aspect of the culture at LEYF. Different communities of practice within the organisation invite storytelling and sharing. The following quote comes from a nursery manager describing an email interaction that occurred between a group of LEYF nursery managers who come together each month face-to-face for collaborative reflection and discussion:

Because one of the nursery managers recently, she wrote this passionate email about work they’ve been doing with a particular child. And that resonated back again to what our standpoint was, and the impact we do and the influence, and how we can make things better for a particular child. And it was such a moving account of the day and what was happening. (P4)

This comment shows how sharing across the organisation is not just about passing on information, but about the emotive and social connectedness of the information. As Guglielmo and Palsule (2014) suggest, what matters here is not the ‘know-how’ but rather the emotional and social ripples associated with this know-how. This impacts positively on motivation and passion across the organisation, moving people to continue to give of themselves.

As a room leader said about her monthly workshops and the sharing that happens in this context: ‘it feeds me’ (P5). Clearly, sharing stories has a power that goes beyond practical problem-solving and has a vital influence on motivation within the organisation. The same room leader went on to describe how she herself uses personal storytelling as a way to help her team connect with the values of LEYF:

For example, I’ll say to the team ‘ok, these are the four pillars: inspiring, fun, brave, nurturing. Tell me how you’re inspiring; what does that mean to you?’ So I’ll do that in our room meetings because there is no point if you don’t understand or it doesn’t mean anything to you, and then we’ll talk about what does it mean to be brave, who are we talking about? (P5)

As Stodd (2016) suggests, co-created storytelling appears to be an important aspect of leadership in these dialogical conceptualisations because it makes and re-makes a common sense of purpose on a daily basis.

Committing to a strong sense of social purpose

When asked about leadership and how they demonstrated and developed leadership in their work, professionals at LEYF repeatedly circled back to the sense of purpose they felt committed to. In this sense, leadership was envisaged as ‘invisible leadership’ (Robinson-Hickman and Sorenson 2013), where the purpose drove practices and continuous improvement.

How individuals verbalised the purpose of the organisation varied. There was a common thread of putting ‘children at the centre’ but while some individuals focused almost exclusively on the children, others put the child into the wider context, and they focused more on the partnership with the family, or the role of the nursery in the community, or even the improvement of society more broadly. Demonstrating this, the following three statements all come from teachers in the same nursery. The underlining has been added by the researchers to demonstrate the different nuance in the articulation of purpose shared by these participants.

LEYF is about the children. Everything that we do is focused on how can we lead the children to learn and how can we develop them. (P8)

It’s basically about helping children in more deprived areas … children who otherwise wouldn’t have access to good quality childcare, LEYF provide for them. (P7)

I would say that basically LEYF’s ambition is to ensure that every child who goes through LEYF no matter what stage of development has a stimulating experience at nursery no matter what background they come from. (P5)

In the first statement, the teacher expresses the purpose of LEYF exclusively in terms of the child without any explicit consideration of the wider social context in which the child’s opportunities for learning and development are influenced. They verbalise their purpose through the original meaning of pedagogy (‘leading the child to learn’). In sharp contrast, the second teacher suggests that LEYF’s purpose is to help those children who would otherwise not be able to access high-quality educational provision as a result of their disadvantaged background. The third response represents something of a middle ground between these two responses since the primary focus is on the child – ‘every child’ – but there is an acknowledgment of the role that the wider social context plays through the phrase ‘no matter what background they come from’.

Diversity in how LEYF’s purpose is articulated by staff is important because it enables staff to connect with the social purpose in different ways depending on their own perspective and position. Not all LEYF staff connect instantly or exclusively with the aim of social justice; that is, they understand their social purpose in terms of particular children and families, rather than in wider terms of securing equity across society. For some professionals, they conceptualised the social purpose of EY more in terms of the child themselves:

Our teaching, the way we work with the community, the way we interact with parents, teachers, relationships, and the harmonious relationship, the general harmonious relationships among everyone, but the focus is really the children. The way that you talk to the children, the way that you react to the children, the way you do things is totally different, very much from other nurseries. (P14; italics added)

Other professionals focused more intensively on early intervention with parents and the power of home learning and parent–professional partnerships, as in the comment below, which relates to the work of social impact nurseries:

… it was all about the community work that we do and all of the work that we do with the children to support their emotional wellbeing, their communication and language, and also lots of early intervention with the parents … that would have an impact on the children in the nursery but would then filter out into the community to make that social impact, so it’s about changing the mindsets of the parents and how they view education and Early Years (P15)

A minority of teachers were interested more in the less immediately tangible impact on society of providing childcare on a not-for-profit basis. They situated their articulation of LEYF’s purpose in an even wider social context, thinking about the position of EY in relation to society more generally, the working conditions in nurseries and employee rights:

… the fact that it was a social enterprise that brought into play that focus on children from poor backgrounds, that consciousness about poverty (P4)

… you know that they put children and families first. And probably if you work for a company like that they’re probably considering employees as well and your rights. (P10)

In summary, a sense of social purpose was an essential part of leadership conceptualisations, but it was also essential for the LEYF staff that the purpose itself was dynamic, multi-dimensional and flexible to context. This is why we have crafted this theme around the idea of social purpose, rather than using the term ‘social justice’. While important recent literature (e.g. Nicholson et al. 2020) emphasises the need to build a stronger relationship between conceptualisations of leadership and social justice, we also want to develop conceptualisations of leadership that stay ‘close to the ground’ and work in language that makes sense to EY professionals in their everyday context. We therefore embrace the term ‘social purpose’, though further research and reflection is needed to understand whether this term is helpful in moving forward with our thinking about EY leadership.

Acting with optimism in difficult contexts

Some of the teachers interviewed made sense of leadership as the capacity to make change happen. They felt that through their work with LEYF, they were actively improving the world around them and in doing so, they were leaders:

… you feel that actually I’m part of this, you know, this is LEYF but I’m LEYF as well so I can contribute to make LEYF great, to bring, to help the children, to give the children a better life, a future, to make a foundation for them for when they can lead you. You’re happy to do this (P12)

In generating this sense of optimism, the organisation – and most essentially, the professionals – are pushing back against the de-professionalisation of the EY workforce in England through poor pay, conditions and status, and instead repositioning themselves as impactful change-makers in society. The LEYF decision to call all of its frontline staff ‘teachers’ is a vital part of this optimistic outlook. This is important given that the vast majority of EY professionals do not enjoy the same pay, conditions or status as teachers working in the school system. One of the nursery managers expressed her joy in relation to this conscious shift in identity:

… It’s got a properness to what we do, we’re no longer the pots and pans mixers, or the nappy changing whatever (laughs), the wipe your nose group, we are a professional teaching force, and we’re in early years. (P4)

A room leader in another nursery echoed these sentiments:

I love the fact that our title’s been changed. And we had one conference where [LEYF CEO] announced, I don’t want you called practitioners, you’re not nursery assistants, you’re teachers. And that is so true, especially because of what we do and the way we do it, we’re teaching all the time. You’re teaching all the time, so I would say to my staff, there is a learning opportunity in every moment. (P5)

The move to call staff ‘teachers’ in the organisation is important because it is an act of optimism within a difficult context. In a small but significant way, it moves practice beyond the struggles of a fragmented and under-valued EY sector. The decision to call staff in the organisation ‘teachers’ acts against the wider problematic context and instils a sense of leadership as acts of optimism that fly in the face of context. Sumsion (2007), in her consideration of retention across the EY workforce in Australia, calls for a push back against ‘collective impotence’ (a term originally used by Bauman 1999 to describe a sector-wide pessimism and inability to advocate and take action). Sumsion suggests the need to develop ‘robust hope’ and ‘critical imagination’ in order to move forward as EY professionals, researchers and advocates when policy seems set against you. Long, Souto-Manning, and Vasquez (2016) highlight the importance of this in their thoughts on courageous leadership – the need to be aware of context, but also to look beyond it in order to take actions and make change despite unfairness and difficulty. We can see the adoption of the ‘teacher’ title in LEYF as an act of robust hope and critical imagination.

Leadership in these dialogical conceptualisations therefore involves recognising that contexts are problematic but still finding a way to act positively and with optimism despite the context. Nicholson and Maniates (2016) focus on something similar when they consider the power of oral inquiry for leadership development in EY. Working together, they encourage EY practitioners to help each other to identify ‘personal resources, individual characteristics and the relationships they have available to support and leverage positive change’ (22). They guide leaders to look for ‘small wins’ and for potential allies and advocates within a wider, potentially hostile, context. Leadership is therefore waking up to context without allowing it to dominate.

Discussion

To summarise the research findings, the first two of the four themes – warmth and sharing stories – relate to key aspects of the relational conceptualisations of leadership. The third theme relates to the centrality of purpose and connecting to social purpose; however, while Nicholson et al. (2020) brought social justice as purpose to the fore of their review of leadership in EY, the dialogical conceptualisations shared here highlight the need for some flexibility in how social purpose is articulated. The final theme was that of acting with optimism in the face of difficult contexts; it involves finding ways to build fulfilment, value and status in the context of a downtrodden EY workforce (Nagasawa and Swadener 2020).

The dialogical conceptualisations of leadership in EY shared in this article, articulated by staff in a social enterprise nursery group in London, highlight the need to move beyond ready-made models of leadership, to instead embrace the richness and responsiveness of conceptualisation leadership that comes about through conversations with those enacting EY leadership on the ground day to day.

Following from this main contribution, the four themes of leadership articulated in this article are in no way intended as a ‘one-size-fits-all’ model of leadership in EY. However, we would like to use them to highlight two points of consideration. First, in line with the New Leadership Paradigm, the themes demonstrate the importance of relational dimensions (i.e. the social context) but they do also suggest the need for leadership development to focus on advocacy and action to change context, rather than just working within its difficult constraints. Second, the themes highlight the importance of purpose and the ‘invisible leadership’ it emits, while at the same time suggesting that purpose can – and might need to be – complex and multi-dimensional given the diversity of the sector. That is to say, if business, social and pedagogical needs are all being balanced within the system, a commitment to purpose will look and sound distinct in different parts of the system and potentially even within the same organisation as was the case here.

While we put forward these considerations, we again stress that the main contribution of the article is its methodological approach to developing insights into leadership: its focus on leadership as something that is made and re-made constantly. This is important when we consider the design of formal courses and informal learning opportunities aimed at developing leadership in the EY sector. Rather than foisting models of leadership onto EY leaders, what we need is to offer the space and stimuli for genuine and dynamic investigations into the nature of EY leadership. Through pedagogical conversations and action research, EY leaders-in-the-making have the opportunity to recognise but also change the context of EY. They learn to respect their own voices and ideas through hands-on exploration of and reflection on leadership.

Our research is unapologetically interpretivist. Because of this, the generalisability of the specific findings is of course limited. Some of the insights may feel relevant to other contexts, while others do not. Our aim though is not to offer up a new model of leadership that may or may not work in other contexts, but rather to invite future dialogue about how explorations of EY leadership can respond to the diversity and complexity of the sector and, in particular, the urgent need to balance pedagogical, social and business agendas. We also hope to stimulate further discussion about the nature of leadership development and the potential benefits of ensuring that this development is driven by dialogue, action and collaborative reflection. Future research is needed to observe this kind of practice-based leadership development in action and what it might offer, as well as the difficulties it produces.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).