Leadership begins in the head and heart. It is a way of thinking about yourself and the vital role you play in your early childhood program. This book dispels the myth that there is one best leadership style that all directors should emulate. It will help you understand the subtle but important distinction between leadership as a role and leadership as a set of skills and competencies that can be supported and nurtured at all levels of the organization. Filled with practical suggestions and lively examples from high-performing directors, you’ll learn how you can create and sustain a compelling vision for your program that transforms your center into a vibrant and engaging learning community.
Imagine what your program would look like if it were a true professional learning community—a place where teachers saw each new day as an opportunity to expand their competence and confidence and support one another in moving toward a shared vision of program excellence. Envision what your supervisory practices, professional development activities, and performance appraisal system would look like in such a work setting. Written in an engaging and lively style, this book provides the power tools you need to help you build teacher competence, strengthen staff commitment, and expand opportunities for collaboration to make that vision come alive.
Meetings are the glue that holds early childhood organizations together. Whether it’s a weekly staff meeting, a monthly parent meeting, or an annual board meeting, directors rely on meetings as the primary vehicle for communicating information, identifying and solving problems, and making new decisions and modifying old ones. There is no avoiding it, skill in facilitating meetings is essential for effective program management. This book is filled with practical tips and techniques to help you reverse the slump you may be experiencing in meeting effectiveness. You’ll learn how to accomplish more work in less time and have more fun in the process.
As the director of an early childhood program, you are in a unique position to influence the decision-making policies and practices at your center. In this book you’ll learn that participative management is both a philosophy and a set of behaviors that define your interactions with people. You’ll explore techniques for managing the daily business of your center by involving others in critical decisions affecting their professional fulfillment. If you are serious about wanting staff to become vital partners in achieving centerwide goals, then this book is essential reading.
Early childhood program administrators often have a global impression that things are going well or not so well at their center, but they lack specific feedback on just what the different areas of the organization contribute to those impressions. This updated and expanded edition of an NAEYC bestseller helps directors define more precisely how ten dimensions of a center shape the quality of work life for staff. It will help you look at your program in terms of collegiality, opportunities for professional growth, supervisor support, clarity, reward system, decision making, goal consensus, task orientation, physical setting, and innovation. Written in an engaging and lively style, the ideas in this book will help you sharpen your leadership skills and make your center A Great Place to Work.
The quest for excellence begins with an inner quest to discover who we are—our passions, values, talents, personal resources, and even those foibles and annoying habits we might prefer not to acknowledge. Having a better understanding of ourselves is the first step toward achieving a better relationship with others. From the Inside Out is your passport for self-discovery. Through thought-provoking questions and engaging exercises you’ll have an opportunity to reflect on where you are in your journey through adulthood, determine the gap between your current and ideal work environment, and become a self-mentor for envisioning new possibilities for the decades ahead.
Well-trained and experienced staff are the key to early childhood program quality and healthy child development. Yet, every director knows that finding those teachers is a huge challenge. Skills in recruitment, interviewing, screening, selecting, and orienting new teachers are ones that every director needs. This book breaks down the recruitment, selection, and orientation processes into manageable components and suggests practical and effective techniques to help you find teachers with the right fit for your program’s particular needs.
