Shop by Topic
Shop by Product
ExchangeEveryDay Past Issues
<< Previous Issue
| View Past Issues | | Next Issue >> 
Legend in Your Own Mind
October 6, 2010
We are, essentially, stealing from children when they are forced to train for the future instead of allowing them to play in the now. Trust in play.
-Suzanne Axelsson
-Suzanne Axelsson
"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 have serious consequences. In the short term, it can undermine staff motivation. Staff members will be frustrated when they are not trusted to share responsibilities.
"In the long term, it can undermine the future of the organization. In a non profit center, where the organization will outlive the director, failure to develop a strong management team can leave the center in chaos when a director leaves. In a for profit center, it can handicap the sale of the business. According to acquisition expert Lisa Berger, buyers of businesses 'look for companies showing management depth that can generate profits without their master architects.'
"It takes a person with a great deal of self-confidence to put up with the plethora of aggravations and the paucity of rewards from running a child care center. But the real challenge for a director is to keep one's ego in check. Your goal as a director should be to work yourself out of a job — to build up a team that can run the organization without you.
Exchange has packaged six of its practical management resources into a single “Manager’s Tool Kit” and is offering the entire set at a 33% discount. Separately, these resources would cost $175, but we are offering the entire Manager’s Tool Kit for only $112. Resources in the kit include:- Taking Stock: Tools and Strategies for Evaluating Programs, Directors, Teachers and Children CD Book
- The Bottom Line for Children's Programs: What You Need to Know to Manage Your Money
- Managing Money: A Center Director’s Guidebook
- Not Just Small Change: Fund Development for Early Childhood Programs
- Basic Techniques for Securing Enrollment: Updated Edition! Four Audio CDs
ExchangeEveryDay
Delivered five days a week containing news, success stories, solutions, trend reports, and much more.
What is ExchangeEveryDay?
ExchangeEveryDay is the official electronic newsletter for Exchange Press. It is delivered five days a week containing news stories, success stories, solutions, trend reports, and much more.
HATCH® introduces Standards-Based Progress Monitoring for Early Learners! iStartSmart™ Promotes School Readiness Skills with Research-Based, Child-Tested Activities that Focus on 18 Skill Development Areas.
ABC and Beyond™, Hanen’s newest guidebook, brings to life the most current research on promoting children’s emergent literacy in early childhood classrooms, teaching educators not just what children should learn, but exactly how to help them learn it.
Comments (6)
Displaying 5 of 6 Comments [ View all ]Shishu Vikash Kendra
Kolkata, West Bengal, India
Leadership is the main part in any field . Director's direction can change the environment in the institution.
Sweet Child O\'Mine Child Care Center
Kingfisher, OK, United States
OMGosh-I resemble EVERY remark! Every point is right on! So glad you DID pull this out of the archives! I am going to read this alot!
Keep checking those articles-good reading needs to be out front often! BTW-I wasn't working in childcare in 1989!
Sincerely,
Tajuana Wisner
405-317-0757
Rainbow Childrens Centre
lennox Head, Australia
You could take out the word Director and put in "co-worker" and the ideas work just as well. When in a team we all have to make a "deliberate effort to develop trust" in co-workers. There are a hundred paths to achieve any goal and it is so hard to acknowledge that your own personal choice among that 100 paths is not necessarily the best or the only way to go. We have to trust co-workers and be prepared to encourage, assist and support them even when they undertake that task in their own way - a way we may feel is inferior to our way of doing it.
United States
I fully agree with the importance of building a deep system of leadership within a center. This is being done by encouraging lead teachers to take director level professional development and adjusting schedules to allow time to do this. Responsibilities and decision making have been shared with them. A serious problem arose when one person began to use her percieved "power" in scheduling to give her friends the best hours and those who bothered her fewer hours or the more difficult ones. She also began to use her lunch breaks with friends as "trash fests" to undermine the current director. The problem was brought to the attention of the board by a parent who could see what was happening behind the "closed" doors. The director feels that her own judgment in choosing leaders is poor and the board is questioning the need for sharing responsiblities and decision making.
How do you develop leadership but help those being trained to understand that truly there is a system of accountablilty? The person named director is the final one to answer to a board or upper management and therefore has the responsiblity to ensure that the center is run at a high quality level.
DBCC, Inc
Baltimore, Maryland, United States
Ahhhhh, Yes!!!! One of the goals of a director is to "grow teachers," but I agree that we must also "grow leaders."
One of the biggest complaints I hear from those of us who have been in the field many years, is that it seems that no one is coming up the career ladder to take our place. But we need to practice reflection (much as we ask teachers to reflect) to see if our practice is encouraging or discouraging the growth of leaders.
Thanks for giving directors this wack on the side of the head!
Margo
Post a Comment