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Speakers included:
- Nadia Diogo Ferreira, Assistant Professor in Education, ISPA – Instituto Universitário, Portugal
- Mihaela Ionescu, Program Director, International Step by Step Association (opening and closing)
- Géraldine Libreau, Policy Officer, European Commission (moderator)
- Marko Strle, Head of School for Leadership in Education, National Education Institute, Slovenia
- Toby Wolfe, Principal Officer, Department of Children, Disability and Equality, Ireland
A growing gap between expectations and
support
Opening the discussion, Mihaela Ionescu
framed leadership as “the thread that connects vision to practice,”
while highlighting a growing disconnect: expectations of leaders continue to
expand, yet systems have not kept pace in building the capacity to support
them.
This sentiment clearly resonated with
participants, who joined from a wide range of contexts including ministries,
universities, NGOs, and ECEC settings across Europe, Africa, Asia, and the
Middle East — underscoring both the global relevance and urgency of the topic.
Leadership: complex, diverse, and often undefined
Drawing on two years of work by the
European Commission’s Working Group on ECEC, the session explored a central
question: how can leadership move from loosely defined roles to real
professional capacity?
A key insight was that leadership in
ECEC is far from a uniform role. Leaders operate across highly diverse systems,
often juggling pedagogical, administrative, relational, and strategic
responsibilities — sometimes simultaneously and without clear preparation or
support.
Speakers stressed that leadership
should not be understood as a one-person function. Distributed leadership, where
responsibilities are shared across teams, emerged as a critical pathway
forward, helping to ease workload pressures while creating stronger, more
sustainable systems.
From competence frameworks to real systems
At the heart of the discussion was the
new competence profile for ECEC leaders developed and proposed by the Working
Group at the European Commission. The profile is structured around areas such
as pedagogy, management, communication, inclusion, ethics, and community
engagement.
Defining competencies is only a first
step. The real challenge lies in translating these into training pathways,
career progression, and professional recognition that work in practice.
Read the Report on leadership in early childhood education and care - competences and training
Country examples from Ireland,
Portugal, and Slovenia highlighted different approaches, but
shared common priorities: embedding reflective practice and continuous
learning; strengthening relationships and trust within teams; and developing
structured support systems, including mentoring and induction.
What professionals are saying
Audience contributions reinforced these
priorities. Participants pointed to persistent challenges, including limited
access to resources, weak induction systems, and the risk of losing highly
trained educators due to insufficient support.
There was a strong call for more structured onboarding and continuous professional development, alongside recognition that leadership plays a direct role in staff retention and well-being.
The overlooked power of “soft” skills
A recurring theme both in the panel and
the chat was the importance of relational and emotional competencies. Skills
such as communication, trust-building, and navigating complexity were widely
seen as essential, yet still under-recognised in policy frameworks.
At the same time, participants highlighted the growing weight of expectations placed on leaders. As one comment put it, the role risks becoming that of a “superhero”, raising important questions about sustainability and the need for systemic, rather than individual, solutions.
A shift towards distributed leadership
The discussion closed with a clear
message: strengthening leadership in ECEC is not just about defining what
leaders should do, but about creating the conditions that enable them to do it.
This means investing in training, building coherent career pathways, reducing administrative burdens, and fostering collaborative, networked systems of support. Ultimately, leadership should not sit with one individual at the top but be embedded across teams and systems. Only then can it drive the kind of lasting, meaningful change that high-quality ECEC requires.
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