McCormick Institute for Early Childhood

BY Marie Masterson | January 18, 2019

A woman wearing glasses and a suit is smiling in front of a flag.

Sim Loh is a family partnership coordinator at Children’s Village, a nationally-accredited Keystone 4 STARS early learning and school-age enrichment program in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, serving about 350 children. She supports children and families, including non-English speaking families of immigrant status, by ensuring equitable access to education, health, employment, and legal information and resources on a day-to-day basis. She is a member of the Children First Racial Equity Early Childhood Education Provider Council, a community member representative of Philadelphia School District Multilingual Advisory Council, and a board member of Historic Philadelphia.


Sim explains, “I ensure families know their rights and educate them on ways to speak up for themselves and request for interpretation/translation services. I share families’ stories and experiences with legislators and decision-makers so that their needs are understood. Attending Leadership Connections will help me strengthen and grow my skills in all domains by interacting with and hearing from experienced leaders in different positions. With newly acquired skills, I seek to learn about the systems level while paying close attention to the accessibility and barriers of different systems and resources and their impacts on young children and their families.”

This document may be printed, photocopied, and disseminated freely with attribution. All content is the property of the McCormick Center for Early Childhood Leadership.

Essentials are items or attributes absolutely necessary or extremely important to your needs and goals. What are essentials for you? Car keys? Cream in your morning coffee? An umbrella for a rainy day? Time at the gym after work? Essential things have significant impact.


Leadership essentials create positive impact in your program. What qualities motivate and engage staff? How will you respond to a difficult email when someone’s feelings are on the line? How can you mediate a disagreement or resolve a conflict?


When a situation is complex and requires more than a few lines or a decision is at stake, it is always better to meet in person or chat by phone. If video conferencing is an option, that’s a perfect way to establish a connection and brainstorm solutions. When someone’s feelings are on the line, it’s always better to pick up the phone and have a conversation. What you say can be clarified, revised, or explained; whereas, what is written may not come across as intended. Personal communication provides important cues to what is really going on.


With a priority on saving time and responding quickly, you may be tempted to write instead of call. It will pay off to consider the best means of responding. An email works to clarify plans, restate mutual decisions, or share information. When it comes to solving problems, personal connections work best. Successful outcomes are dependent on your ability to inspire growth, cooperation, and commitment in others.  


Leadership essentials cultivate a healthy and productive program. Staff feel safe, understand their value, and work toward shared goals. Traits for effective leadership include self-efficacy, empathy, creativity, authenticity, humility, transparency, adaptability, and ongoing learning. These qualities are strengthened through tools of communication, team-building, awareness of self and others, cultural competence, ethical conduct, intentionality, the ability to motivate others, and a deep knowledge of the profession. Essentials are the foundation blocks for effective leadership practice. This kind of skilled leadership is critical to high-quality practices for child development and early learning.


Making leadership essentials a priority will move you forward to new milestones in your leadership journey. The following action steps will help you apply leadership essentials in practical ways.


  1. Determine your strengths. What areas of your work are a snap and feel enjoyable? List your “snaps” and the reasons you feel good about this area of your work.
  2. Identify at least one challenge. What is it about this situation that is complex? How will applying a leadership essential make a difference?
  3. Create a weekly action step. Purposeful action steps move you from thinking mode to action mode and impact your professional growth. “Today, I will read one chapter of the leadership book I bought a month ago.” “Today, I will connect with a staff member to strengthen our relationship.” “Today, I will practice empathy (or another leadership essential) in my relationships with families.”
  4. Post the leadership essentials. Establish leadership essentials as anchors for your program norms and practices. Invite staff to share their thoughts about these important ingredients of success. Explore the whole leadership framework as a way to clarify your goals, communicate the importance of your work, and help your staff understand their influential contribution to your program.
  5. Find a mentor and be a mentor. Identify a professional colleague with traits you admire. Make a phone call and ask, “May I have coffee with you? I would like to ask about your work.” Set a regular meeting time to learn how they strengthen their work with leadership essentials. Offer to be a mentor to share your strengths with others.


Dream big! Check out new resources for growth at the McCormick Center for Early Childhood Leadership. Today is a great time to give yourself the gift of leadership inspiration by participating in Leadership Academies or eLearning experiences. In addition to changing your own life, you will create a more meaningful community of growth for staff, families, and children. 


Marie Masterson, PhD, is the Director of Quality Assessment at the McCormick Center for Early Childhood Leadership at National Louis University. She is a national speaker, child behavior expert, researcher, and author of multiple books and articles that address high-quality teaching, early care and education, and parenting.

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The AI-Enabled Administrator: Reclaim Valuable Time

By Dr. Neal Green • February 8, 2026
Tools: Gemini Gems, NotebookLM, Perplexity Spaces Overview The evidence is clear that early childhood professionals' most significant challenge is a lack of time. Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, when used strategically, can give administrators some of the time they desperately need, allowing them to focus more on their staff and the children and families in their care. This approach aligns with the foundational goal of strengthening leadership effectiveness and program impact (Abel, Talan, & Masterson, 2023). When I scan the AI landscape of available products and platforms, it becomes overwhelming. There are so many options that it is impossible to keep up with every new development. Focusing on a limited number of AI tools backed by organizations with strong infrastructure and fiscal stability is a wise place to start your AI journey. McCormick Institute for Early Childhood’s (MIEC’s) upcoming professional development sessions will focus on three AI tools. These include Gemini Gems, NotebookLM, and Perplexity Spaces. Think of Gemini Gems as your customized AI assistant that you "train" to follow your rules and meet your goals. Gemini Gems are the right tool to tackle Internal Operations . NotebookLM is perfect for creating Family Support resources that stick. NotebookLM is a powerful AI tool that uses only the documents or other resources you add to generate specific, focused output. Perplexity Spaces is a fantastic choice to address Marketing demands. Like many AI tools, you can toggle back and forth between open web searches and focused documents that are specific to your work. Gemini Gems: The “Specialist Teammate” Gemini Gems allow you to create templates you can use repeatedly for agendas, HR policies, and more. If you have used AI in the past, you know that writing an effective prompt takes time, and they can easily get "lost" if you use AI often. Gems removes that challenge and lets you save your most effective prompts without having to rewrite them every time you use Gemini. It is up to you to decide if you want to create several smaller Gems to tackle common challenges you face or create larger Gems that encompass large swaths of your work. For our purposes, we will focus our Gem work on Internal Operations, addressing Program Administration Scale (PAS) Item 9: Internal Communications (Talan & Bloom, 2011). Imagine using a Gem to turn messy staff meeting notes into professional minutes with clear action plans in minutes or less! NotebookLM: The "Walled Garden" NotebookLM is an excellent tool for Family Support for your center, addressing PAS Item 17: Family Support and Involvement (Talan & Bloom, 2011). After uploading documents and resources, such as your parent handbook or community referral lists, to your Notebook, you can create several resources that parents/guardians of your center students will love. Just a few of the impressive features available with NotebookLM include audio (podcast) summaries, video summaries, and reporting functions with templates or the option to create your own report with metrics that matter most to you. Perplexity Spaces: The "Research Librarian" Perplexity Spaces is a perfect AI partner for Marketing your early childhood education (ECE) program, addressing PAS Item 18: External Communications (Talan & Bloom, 2011). You can build your own centralized repository, with control over branding to ensure consistency and present a professional, current image. Adding specific instructions to your space eliminates the need to format documents constantly and saves valuable time. The consistency that a Perplexity Space offers in this regard allows you to upload messages that are the "voice” of your brand. Your marketing efforts are not only more aesthetically pleasing but also enable you to track trends at similar centers in your area, helping you assess the competition. Strategies for Success: Audit your Internal Communications: Identify one repetitive task, such as creating staff meeting agendas (PAS Item 9), and automate it with a Gemini Gem. Curate your Family Resources: Gather three to five existing documents to "feed" a NotebookLM project for more responsive family support (PAS Item 17). Standardize your Brand: Use a Perplexity Space to ensure all public relations tools project a consistent, professional image (PAS Item 18). Reflection Questions: Which administrative task takes the most time away from your interactions with staff and families? How might centralizing marketing materials (branding) impact the professional image to prospective families? Table 1: AI Tools for ECE Professionals
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