Activity 2.1 | ECE Leadership: Role & Characteristics

Activity 2.1 | Leadership Styles, Professional Accountability & Ethical Leadership Practices

Activity 2.1 

In Topic Two's first activity, you will explore foundational leadership styles and consider how these leadership styles can directly influence your leadership practices, approaches, and decisions and impact those you manage and provide care for. Furthermore, you will consider how leadership styles play a pivotal role in shaping professional accountability and ethical leadership practices. 

After completing the various learning events within Activity 2.1, you will be able to:

• Reflect on the impact of professional accountability and ethical, values-based ECE leadership practice
  
• Explain an ECE Leader’s role in fostering an ECE program that honours rights-respecting, equitable, diverse and inclusive environments  
• Describe ways to encourage reflective and reflexive practices in ECE programs as an ECE  
  

• Reading
• Watching Videos
• Self-reflections
• Asynchronous quizzing (immediate feedback)
• Analyzing a case study

Leadership Styles

Leadership Styles

A leadership style in an ECE manager's context refers to how you approach your tasks and interact in your role. Your leadership style directs the way in which you direct and manage staff, make decisions, and behave in your professional settings. 

Kurt Lewin et al. (1939) defined three distinctive leadership styles:

1. Autocratic (authoritarian) leadership
2. Democratic (participative) leadership
   
3. Laissez-faire (delegative) leadership
   

On the following pages, you will examine each leadership style (Lewin et al., 1939) in more detail and consider the leadership style(s) you most closely align with. 

You should note that Leadership styles can change situationally and over time. You may also notice that a single individual may display a combination of leadership styles at any given moment. It is also arguable that a mixture of all leadership styles is optimal (Aronson, 2001; Günzel-Jensen, 2018)

Note. Venn diagram of leadership styles, Gedak, L. 2024

There are many other leadership styles, and when you consider leadership styles, it's important to consider your personality, experience, and goals. 

Servant Leadership

Later, in topic three, you will consider your role as an ECE leader in advocating for change and be introduced to ideas for championing the sector, building community and inclusive environments, and celebrating advancements. When examining ECE leadership through this lens, you may find Servant Leadership (Greenleaf, 2002) an impactful approach. 

“The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve first.” - (Greenleaf, 2002, p. 3)

In 1970, Robert Greenleaf first coined Servant Leadership, and this philosophy has stood the test of time and remained an impactful approach, which is no surprise in our tumultuous world. Servant leaders put the well-being and success of those they manage before their own needs. For Servant Leaders, success is measured by the success of their staff and those impacted by their decisions. Read more about Servant Leadership on the Robert K Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership website. 

On the following pages, you will examine the presented leadership styles (Lewin et al., 1939, Greenleaf, 2002) in more detail and consider the leadership style(s) you most closely align with. 

References

Aronson, E. (2001). Integrating leadership styles and ethical perspectives. Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences/Revue Canadienne des Sciences de l'Administration, 18(4), 244-256.

Greenleaf, R. K. (2002). Servant leadership: A journey into the nature of legitimate power and greatness (25th-anniversary ed.)

Günzel-Jensen, F., Hansen, J. R., Jakobsen, M. L. F., & Wulff, J. (2018). A two-pronged approach? Combined leadership styles and innovative behavior. International Journal of Public Administration, 41(12), 957-970.

Lewin, K., Lippitt, R., & White, R. K. (1939). Patterns of aggressive behaviour in experimentally created “social climates.” The Journal of Social Psychology, 10(2), 269-299.

Autocratic (authoritarian) leadership

A Top-Down Approach

An authoritarian or autocratic leader maintains control over all directives and decisions without consulting with or receiving input from others. There is little to no discussion or negotiation. 

Appropriate and effective when:

• Crisis situations arise, and quick decisions need to be made.

Take a few minutes and consider:

What circumstances or situations might an authoritarian approach be effective in your setting as an ECE manager? 

Democratic (participative) leadership

A Collective Approach

A democratic leadership approach allows everyone an opportunity to contribute to the decision-making process. Democratic leaders are still the decision-makers, but they offer others an opinion and encourage contributions from others.  

Appropriate and effective when:

• A team or group has lots of collective knowledge and ideas and collaboration is beneficial to the system. 

Take a few minutes and consider:

In what ways could involving my team or ECE community partners in decision-making processes enhance our program? 

Laissez-faire (delegative) leadership

A Hands-Off Approach

A Laissez-faire approach is deceivingly titled because it is not a “Who cares?” approach. Instead, it involves being hands-off and trusting your team to accomplish tasks without micromanagement. The team members make decisions and not the leader, and feedback is sought when team members or staff need it.  

Appropriate and effective when:

• Staff or team members are competently trained and skilled to take on the required tasks without being managed. 

Take a few minutes and consider:

Do you believe allowing your staff or team members more flexibility and decision-making freedom could positively impact the educational environment? Why? Why not? 

Quiz

On the following pages, you will engage in a three-question interactive quiz activity, where you will determine which of the three leadership styles is being presented: (1) autocratic (or authoritarian), (2) democratic (or participative), or (3) laissez-faire (delegation). 

As you read the scenarios, consider if you would utilize the same leadership style used in the scenario or approach each one differently. 

Question 1

Question 2

Question 3

Question 4

Professional Accountability

Impact of Leadership Styles

Leadership styles play a crucial role in shaping professional accountability and ethical practices within any organization or program. Regardless of your leadership style at any given moment, you are accountable for your actions as a leader. Furthermore, being professionally accountable means accepting responsibility when things go wrong and giving credit where it's due when things go right. Leaders who hold themselves accountable for their actions show that they are willing to take responsibility for mistakes, not just successes.

Taking accountability demonstrates a commitment to your program, the children, the families and your staff and can serve as a reminder that everyone is accountable for their actions and decisions. 

You will read a short account of professional accountability in action on the next page of this activity. 

A Story of Accountability

Maple Leaf Foods: A Story of Accountability

In 2008, Canadian food processing giant Maple Leaf Foods experienced a crisis that changed the organization: Maple Leaf’s products had been contaminated by listeria. Because of this contamination, 23 people died; and 57 others became very ill. Production at Maple Leaf's Toronto-area plant came to a complete stop. Nearly 5,000 unique media stories were written, and surveys showed a near-100-percent-recognition rate of the story among Canadians.

Great leaders are often defined in situations like this, and Maple Leaf's CEO Michael McCain called a press conference the evening that the outbreak was announced publicly. Rather than staying quiet or clamming up, he immediately went on the record and shared all of the information they had with customers and the world. Rather than taking advice from his accountants and lawyers, McCain was more concerned about clear, honest, and humane communication than the prospect of legal battles or lost sales.

Maple Leaf Foods and Michael McCain were applauded for the handling of this tragic event demonstrating how professional accountability can integrate with ethics and values. 

Reference

Huffman, R. (2014, November 26). Urgency. Accountability. Transparency: Lessons from Maple Leaf Foods.https://www.ivey.uwo.ca/news/news-ivey/2014/11/maple-leaf-foods-urgency-accountability-transparency/ ↵

Reflecting on Accountability

What is the impact? 

Consider the story of Maple Leaf's listeria contamination and CEO Michael McCain's decision to take professional accountability and respond publicly to the crisis.

1. How does the CEO admitting he was wrong resonate with your own beliefs about professional accountability? 
2. In what ways do you see this action aligning with or challenging your current approach to accountability in your professional role? 
3. Considering the better-than-expected conclusion highlighted in the Maple Leaf listeria contamination story, how might acknowledging mistakes contribute to a culture of trust and accountability in your own setting?  

Ethical Leadership

Professional Accountability: A Catalyst for Ethical Practices

Professional accountability can instill a sense of responsibility, promote adherence to quality and standards, foster transparency, facilitate continuous improvement, and become a catalyst for ethical decision-making. 

Professional accountability can support a rights-respecting, equitable, diverse and inclusive environment for your program's community (children, families, staff, partners) by encouraging you and others to:

• Act ethically and adhere to standards and codes of conduct
• Align actions with established ethical norms
• Transparently communicate, give and receive feedback
• Learn from successes and mistakes
• Continuously improve
• Weigh the ethical implications of choices and decisions

Case Study

Reflective Scenario

In this final reflection of this activity, you will examine a case study in which an ECE manager is faced with an ethical dilemma. 

Read the case study and reflect on the provided questions. 

Redirected resources: Shonelle's story

Shonelle is an ECE manager of a well-established daycare known for its commitment to providing high-quality education and care. The centre is renowned for its inclusive practices, fostering a diverse and nurturing environment for children of varying abilities. As an ECE manager, Shonelle has built a good reputation as a dedicated and effective leader. 

The dilemma:

Shonelle discovers a discrepancy in the allocation of resources at the centre. A set budget is designated to support children with financial needs and unexpected hardship. She discovered during her latest audit that, in some instances, these allocated funds have inadvertently been utilized for other program expenses. 

Shonelle recognizes that the redirected funds have gone to areas of need in the program; she knows diverting these resources potentially compromises some of the tailored support for the children for whom the fund is earmarked. She has always been accountable for her mistakes but is unsure how the misallocation occurred and how to correct it as the money was spent on other needs, and she has no way to repopulate the funds. 

Consider:

• What actions should Shonelle take? Why? 
• What can Shonelle do to uphold accountability and maintain trust?
• How might Shonelle prevent similar occurrences in the future?