Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/so-youre-a-director-what-else-can-go-wrong/5006903/
Life is like that sometimes. You knock yourself out to rise to the top of your profession as a child care center director or owner, and what do you get-teachers calling in sick at 6:30 AM, a playground degenerating into a mud puddle, late parents, red ink in the checkbook, intransigent licensing officials . . . the whole litany of daily headaches.But these are just the pesky, garden variety problems. What every director must be prepared for are the fatal follies-the five pitfalls that plague leaders in early childhood education:
Pitfall #1: Legend in Your Own Mind
Just beneath the surface of nearly every director is an ego struggling to control everything that goes on. Not that directors don't know intellectually that they should share responsibilities. It's just that emotionally they can't let go.
Delegation means never having to say you're worried. But it is very difficult for a director to delegate a task and not worry that it will be done right. It requires a deliberate effort to develop trust in your subordinates, to accept that subordinates will do things differently, and to allow them to make mistakes along the way.
A refusal to let go can ...