Introduction
The purpose of this report revolves around reviewing servant leadership (SL) as it pertains to early childhood education. The document explains SL as part of the author’s personal philosophy and discusses SL’s theoretical explanations and impacts on three dimensions of management. Although SL requires further exploration in early childhood settings, its benefits for subordinates’ development deserve attention.
The key principles of a leadership style in the early childhood setting
The leadership style that I aspire to follow as part of my future endeavors as an early childhood educator is servant leadership (SL). SL’s key principles relate to the high-priority areas pertaining to the acts of leading and interpersonal competencies. SL basically shifts the focus of group management activities from the leader’s personal career aspirations or organizational goals to the act of serving individuals and empowering them to achieve new heights (Fuller & Templeton, 2019). To promote servitude, SL necessitates the demonstration of well-developed interpersonal skills and attributes, including listening and persuasion, with an emphasis on engaging in consensual decision-making rather than a healthy conflict (Fuller & Templeton, 2019). These focus areas maximize other-orientedness, thus making a commitment to serving possible.
SL’s principles also incorporate non-egoistic attitudes to others and predicting decisions’ long-term reverberations. SL emphasizes peculiar attitudes to the community, including a commitment to empathy in decision-making and the ability to recognize the risks of harm and initiate healing processes (Fuller & Templeton, 2019). The attitude-related principles also include stewardship in the form of staying aware of others’ needs and the community-building capacity or the leader’s mastery in using communication to foster connections between others. SL involves some elements of big-picture thinking, including ethical awareness and applying foresight to derive lessons from past experiences and comprehend leadership moves’ outcomes (Fuller & Templeton, 2019). It strikes the right balance by preventing an excessive focus on individual followers’ interests.
SL aligns with my professional leadership philosophy due to certain conceptual proximity between them in terms of teaching by example. My philosophy prioritizes the professional educator’s ability to become a role model for the students while actively supporting their development and a positive school climate (Douglass, 2019). Along with the National Quality Standard (NQS) 7.1, my perspective on leadership in early childhood settings also stresses the leader’s ability to learn from colleagues (Australian Children’s Education & Care Quality Authority [ACECQA], 2017). SL supports all of these elements due to prioritizing commitment to service, needs identification, fostering positive interactions, and building community among individuals being led (Fuller & Templeton, 2019). Focusing on the identification and analysis of critical lessons, SL’s foresight-related component partially applies to adopting lessons from fellow educators’ prior encounters and approaches to classroom issues (Fuller & Templeton, 2019). Therefore, SL’s central concepts and principles reinforce the elements of my leading philosophy, making this leadership style a suitable choice to implement.
The Theoretical Underpinnings of the Leadership Style
Regarding the selected leadership style’s theoretical underpinnings, SL is explained as one of the oldest approaches to leading inspired by self-denial. SL is greatly dissimilar from demonstrating an active application of one’s competition-related characteristics and assets. Leadership theorists argue that SL dates back to diverse ancient communities and the religiously informed notions of self-sacrifice (Joseph Jeyaraj & Gandolfi, 2022). Specifically, SL is theorized to have obvious similarities to the Christian philosophies of leading and Confucian teachings (Joseph Jeyaraj & Gandolfi, 2022). Another hypothetical source of SL is represented by the selflessness-based leading styles widespread in Middle Eastern tribal cultures, such as Bedouin tribes (Joseph Jeyaraj & Gandolfi, 2022). In the case of SL theory, the presence of multiple sources of inspiration explains the multitude of terms from various disciplines, including theology, psychology, and management.
Based on theories, engagement in SL is possible if a particular set of personality traits/competencies is present, making authentic SL rather challenging to achieve. In the early 1970s, Greenleaf formulated a comprehensive list of traits that distinguish a genuine servant leader from individuals involved in purely managerial tasks or leaders with dissimilar priority-setting practices (Joseph Jeyaraj & Gandolfi, 2022). Within this theoretical proposition’s frame, SL stems from a combination of “listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to people’s growth, and community-building” (Joseph Jeyaraj & Gandolfi, 2022, p. 89). The ideas about SL as an application of specific personality traits are also mentioned in Spears’s empirical research completed in 2004 (Joseph Jeyaraj & Gandolfi, 2022). According to it, SL-related traits, as well as orientation for personal ethical growth, tend to “occur naturally within individuals” (Joseph Jeyaraj & Gandolfi, 2022, p. 89). Considering this, SL theorists generally accept the idea that practicing SL can be particularly challenging for leaders prone to egocentric behaviors (Fuller & Templeton, 2019; Joseph Jeyaraj & Gandolfi, 2022). Nevertheless, the opportunity to enhance one’s suitable personality assets through training is not denied.
Other crucial facts peculiar to SL’s underpinnings are the emphasis on the advocacy concept and the hypothetical ability to initiate change. The early education leadership framework by Kagan and Bowman positions advocacy as one of the key dimensions of leading, and SL effectively epitomizes the meaning of advocating for the followers’ needs (ACECQA, 2017). In SL, the prioritization of followers’ interests over the leader’s personal goals is supposed to create a strong basis for advocacy (Fuller & Templeton, 2019). In organizations, SL can strengthen the internal ties between the servant leader and other members of the organization (Fuller & Templeton, 2019; Joseph Jeyaraj & Gandolfi, 2022). By transforming the servant leader into a successful role model for others, the self-denial and humility elements of SL are supposed to promote employee advocacy at many levels (Fuller & Templeton, 2019; Joseph Jeyaraj & Gandolfi, 2022). In other words, SL, if practiced in teams that have no motivation-related issues, can make good examples and caring for others contagious attitudes. This might result in positive effects on service quality at local, national, and international levels.
How the Leadership Style Influences Management in an Early Childhood Setting
In relation to managing children, SL can increase the amount of attention and resources dedicated to improving young learners’ individual achievement. If practiced by teachers, SL, with its emphasis on relative selflessness and the followers’ well-being, can probably increase the subjective value of an individual approach to teaching and improving children’s skill deficiencies. SL involves empowering others to elicit their true potential (Joseph Jeyaraj & Gandolfi, 2022). With that in mind, implementing it in an early education setting might shift the teacher’s attention from strict performance standards to individual learners’ unique situations, struggles, and talents. This hypothetical situation is fraught with positive opportunities, such as making early education even more inclusive for a wide variety of subgroups. However, the risks of overestimating young children’s need for flexibility and overemphasizing the departure from authoritarian classroom management techniques might also increase the risks of disruptions (Joseph Jeyaraj & Gandolfi, 2022). Thus, SL in teachers has both advantages and disadvantages when it comes to child management.
As a leadership style based on the appreciation of collaboration rather than competition, SL can increase teachers’ readiness to promote collaborative work among children and teach them to resolve conflicts. The fifth NQS Quality Area establishes the need for self-regulation opportunities and the appreciation of safe and effective collaboration between children as the necessary prerequisites to learning that educators must support (Stamopoulos & Barblett, 2018). Also, Outcome 1 of the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) suggests that learners younger than five should understand interaction “with care, empathy, and respect” (Department of Education, Employment, and Workplace Relations, 2009, p. 27). SL, along with the previously cited trait theory, is represented through a commitment to community-building (Joseph Jeyaraj & Gandolfi, 2022). In early childhood education settings, educators with this style will be likely to express this social orientation by supporting meaningful contact between learners.
In terms of SL in early childhood settings, there is empirical evidence to suggest its positive effects with regard to staff management. As per questionnaire research in preschool settings in Taiwan, directors’ adherence to the principles of SL is positively correlated with education professionals’ organizational commitment (Wu et al., 2018). In early childhood education facilities, directors’ SL mostly finds reflections in the orientation at community growth (Wu et al., 2018). As for their approaches to the management of their teaching staff, this priority area results in an emphasis on teacher empowerment and overseeing teachers’ interaction (Wu et al., 2018). Under these circumstances, identifying the need for teamwork development endeavors can become easier.
To continue, staff management can become more growth-oriented as a result of practicing SL. Directors’ SL alters staff management practices to incorporate more opportunities for teachers’ ongoing professional development and strengthen cooperation between various team members (Wu et al., 2018). As per the NQS Standard 4.2.1, teachers should collaborate with managerial employees and other staff members, recognize others’ professional assets, and learn from others (ACECQA, 2018). Based on the aforementioned outcomes of SL, practicing it can be conducive to meeting this standard. As the findings cited above illustrate, SL practiced in early childhood settings alters staff management by prioritizing collaboration and educators’ continuous development.
SL in early education settings can transform management with regard to families. Along with the sixth Quality Area of the NQS, early education professionals are expected to develop respectful/supportive relationships with families and regard parental views as a factor in decision-making (ACECQA, 2018). As opposed to more authoritarian styles that prioritize plans and following strict standards, SL transforms educational leaders into community servants, which has implications for facility-parent communication (Blose & Muteweri, 2021). For principals in early childhood settings, such as early childhood development centers, commitment to the principles of SL benefits families by maximizing the facility’s engagement in identifying children’s basic unmet needs (Blose & Muteweri, 2021). In low-income areas, examples of such changes include adding extra meals for students to support their families in maintaining children’s health (Blose & Muteweri, 2021). Therefore, SL can improve the focus on convenience for the family in service-related decisions.
SL practiced by regular early education teachers has not been thoroughly explored. However, considering empathy and awareness listed among SL’s traits, this style can potentially predispose teachers to more empathetic responses when managing parental complaints and requests for certain accommodations (Fuller & Templeton, 2019). With that in mind, the leadership style’s effects might include an increased acceptance of families’ unique challenges as an issue to be resolved. At the same time, summarizing this attitude’s universal impacts on facilities’ decision-making is challenging.
Conclusion
In summary, SL presents an interesting phenomenon inseparable from becoming a role model for others. Theories of SL mainly relate engagement in it to the presence of particular character traits and altruistic attitudes to others. Finally, SL can influence management in early childhood settings in diverse ways, including the promotion of cooperation between children in the classroom or staff members.
References
Australian Children’s Education & Care Quality Authority. (2017). Occasional paper 5: Leadership and management in education and care services. An analysis of Quality Area 7 of the National Quality Standard. Web.
Australian Children’s Education & Care Quality Authority. 2018 National Quality Standard assessment and rating instrument. Web.
Blose, S., & Muteweri, E. (2021). Tapping into leadership in early childhood development centers: Learning from the lived experiences of principals in South African townships. SAGE Open, 11(4), 1-10.
Department of Education, Employment, and Workplace Relations. (2009). Belonging, being, & becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia. Commonwealth of Australia.
Douglass, A. L. (2019). Leadership for quality early childhood education and care. OECD Education Working Papers, 211, 1-30.
Fuller, M. J., & Templeton, N. R. (2019). Principal as servant-leader: An embedded-descriptive single-case study of one prekindergarten school’s efforts to build teacher capacity in foundational skills. Education Leadership Review, 20(1), 190-204. Web.
Joseph Jeyaraj, J., & Gandolfi, F. (2022). The servant leader as a critical pedagogue: Drawing lessons from critical pedagogy. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 25(1), 88-105.
Stamopoulos, E., & Barblett, L. (2018). Early childhood leadership in action: Evidence-based approaches for effective practice. Allen & Unwin.
Wu, H. J., Tseng, S. F., Wang, P. H., & Wu, P. L. (2018). A study of the relationship between directors’ servant leadership and teachers’ organizational commitment of kindergartens in Taiwan. Asian Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities, 7(3), 50-55. Web.