Supporting Early Childhood Leadership in your Affiliate

Presented by various members of the IOWA AEYC board, June 11, 2012

Beyond what is a GOOD leader – what does our association need?? 

Why does our field need leaders?

What are the current challenges?

What are our CRISIS ISSUES?

(some of the ideas that came from audience)

Competition for money

Definitions

Inconsistency

People who have never done this job have become the bosses

Pondering Points:

·      Many in the field resist consistently doing what we know if necessary for achieving good results for children.

·      We are willing to tolerate poor performance by our colleagues and our staff.

·      We hesitate to improve ourselves and our programs if doing so involves too much effort/cost.

·      We postpone change and thus defer its benefits perhaps missing this current generation of young children completely 

In response, IOWA AEYC did the following:

1.     Exploring leadership at the governing board level

**using the NAEYC Vision 2015 as a guide

2.     Using the NAEYC national dialogue as a model for conversation in our own chapters

3.     Offering non-members in our field the opportunity to join the conversation

4.     Inviting more of our members to consider leadership opportunities. 

We need to recognize that the most powerful way to engage future leaders is to invite them to participate in something meaningful.

If the only invitation we give is to “chair the conference” we might be scaring away a lot of interested folks.

We need leaders who possess these skills so that the VISION and MISSION doesn’t die when we do. 

How do we make sure our vision doesn’t retire with us?

HPIO = High Performing, Inclusive Organizations

If you don’t have all the resources you need you don’t have enough people around the table (I would offer: or the “right” people)

How do you assist 20 year long board members in stepping aside when the time is right??

How are pushing ourselves out of our own comfort zones?

How do we support new leaders?