The Significance of Leadership and Management in Childhood Essay

The Significance of Leadership and Management in Childhood - Essay Example Generally, early childhood education occurs from the time of a child’s birth to the age of eight. However, in the actual sense, this kind of education normally occurs from the time of birth to the time when the child starts attending school. At this point, the child mainly learns through play which therefore becomes the focus of early childhood education. The domain of early childhood education covers social, physical, intellectual, and emotional development as well as the child’s development of creative skills. The development of children in early education greatly depends on a number of factors some of which include the management and leadership of the education centers. The paper will analyze the aspects on management and leadership with respect to early childhood education. Leadership in Early Childhood Education Generally, leadership refers to a process whereby an individual influences the others to accomplish a given objective while directing them in a more cohesi ve and coherent manner. In short leadership is the ability to encourage a group of individuals towards achieving a similar goal according to Anderson and Anderson (2010). Early care and education leadership is not limited to administration and management instead involving also aspects of education. In this sense, leadership in this field demands that practitioners become willing to take reasonable risks and maintain a vision that goes beyond individual organizations, services and programs. With respect to early childhood development, effective leadership encompasses a myriad of activities. Some of these activities include the identification and articulation of collective vision, effective communication, encouraging meditation, and the assessment and monitoring of practice. Other activities that fall in this category include the establishment of distributed leadership, commitment to progressive professional development, the establishment of team culture and a community that is commit ted to learning. Since early care centers have stakeholders that include parents and members of the community, leadership also involves encouraging and facilitating cooperation between the centre, parents and the community. Beyond doubt, leadership in early education also involves innovation, sensitivity to history, context, and diversity. According to Rodd 1996, leadership in early childhood involves kindness, patience, warmth and other attributes associated with goodness to children, parents and the community. Furthermore, leadership as noted by Rodd is concerned with orientation toward certain specific goals, good planning, confidence, and mentoring as well as professional confidence. Management in Early Childhood Education In the current world, early childhood educators face a lot of strategic and management challenges, a situation that demands their acquisition of sound management skills. Management in business terms refers to the organization and coordination of an organizatio n’s activities in accordance with particular policies in order to achieve defined objectives. Management is a discipline which comprises interrelated functions including the formulation of organizational policies, planning, controlling and organizing as well as directing the resources of an organization towards achieving the objectives. Management can involve one person or thousands of individuals depending on the size of the organization in question. Communication Communication involves the transfer of information from one party to another. During early childhood education , educators have the responsibility to communicate with the children under their care. However, in some cases there are barriers to communication which the educators u,must seek to eliminate so as to achieve