274: Is Authority in Early Childhood Leadership About Being Bossy or Brave?

In this episode of Child Care Conversations, Kate and Carrie chat about what real authority looks like in early childhood leadership. They remind you that being a great leader isn’t about being bossy, it’s about being brave, sharing your expertise, and guiding others with confidence and compassion. 

They offer practical tips for embracing your unique strengths, advocating for your program, and finding your leadership style, whether you’re front and center or working behind the scenes. If you need a boost of encouragement and some savvy advice, this episode is for you! 

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Transcript

Marie 00:00:03  Welcome to Child Care Conversations, the podcast where early childhood leaders like you get real world strategies, honest talk and a whole lot of support. Whether you're running one center or many. We're here to help you lead with confidence and clarity. This episode is brought to you by our summer partner Child Care Business Growth, your go to solution for filling spots, increasing revenue, and scaling your childcare business without the burnout. We're proud to partner with a team that's as committed to your success as we are. Learn more at Childcare Business growth.com. Now let's get into today's conversation. One we think you're really going to love.

Kate 00:00:49  So is authority being bossy or is authority being brave. I mean we would say brave because we believe that IT leaders should have authority, should be recognized as the experts and professionals that they are. But I am sure at least some people have gotten the bossy tag.

Carrie 00:01:13  And when we think about directors, we often get folks who come up and they'll find us at the end of a conference, or they'll kind of share their stories, you know, through a coaching session.

Carrie 00:01:26  And we realize that they're trying to make everybody happy.

Kate 00:01:31  Oh, that doesn't work out. Well, that. No.

Carrie 00:01:35  And if they're not doing that, they want everybody to do it their way. So we have bossy. We have make everybody happy. We have got to do it your way. How can we just help people be confident in who they are?

Kate 00:01:53  And I don't I don't know that we can do that because that's again trying to make everybody do it our way. so I think a lot of what, being a leader in early childhood, actually, I guess being a leader in a lot of industries is is having that whole have a direction because we we need to have some knowledge. Really. I mean, I think part of being the authority, being the boss, is I know more stuff than you. So just believe me when I say.

Carrie 00:02:37  But don't we also have to have compassion and be able to have those, those other connections? And that's how we get people stuck in that, that I want to make everybody happy part.

Kate 00:02:49  I mean, yeah, we have to have some compassion. But if you know more than the other person, like, I can have compassion for the two year old who keeps trying to put the left shoe on the right foot, but I know that the left shoe needs to go on the left foot, and I can give them all the grace in the world, but that kid's not going to get the shoe onto their foot if they're trying to put it on the wrong foot. If the shoe is properly sized. Right. So a kid trying to put on cowboy boots on the wrong feet. So that will we'll do cowboy boots, because sometimes the sneakers, there's not a whole lot of difference. But on the cowboy boots there usually is. Right. So it is.

Carrie 00:03:35  A.

Kate 00:03:35  Fun kind of me.

Carrie 00:03:37  I feel like there's a you might be in Texas if.

Kate 00:03:40  There's plenty of places other than Texas where people work out with it. but it is unkind of me to not step in and help that two year old get the right shoe on the right foot.

Carrie 00:03:52  Well, then, as a as a podcast, as people who work with directors, we we've been doing this for a long time. What is our job to help that director figure out how do we help them? Our listeners right now, how do we help them get their shoe.

Kate 00:04:09  On.

Carrie 00:04:09  The right foot?

Kate 00:04:11  I don't know. We keep talking, and we hope that they keep listening. I mean, I don't I don't know what the answer is other than to continue to remind them that they do know stuff, that they are an authority on how to run that program.

Carrie 00:04:31  Absolutely. And chances are, if you're the director, you were hired because, you know, stuff.

Kate 00:04:36  I mean, I hope so. I hope owners and boards aren't just hiring directors because they can fog a mirror. Because if people are hiring directors based on, they can fog a mirror. We got bigger problems.

Carrie 00:04:49  All right. So, you know, some stuff. And I would suspect that if you have been a director or even a teacher to a director or an instructional coach or a curriculum developer, whatever, brought you to child care conversations with Kate Cate and Kerry.

Carrie 00:05:04  I'm guessing that if you've you've probably been around for a few years, which means there's probably something that you do better than everybody else. Don't you think?

Kate 00:05:15  I mean, maybe not better than everybody else, but better than the people around you or you because.

Carrie 00:05:20  Or you can share it in a way like we both have experience, not only personally, but within our children, that sometimes somebody can just explain something in a way that you go. I never thought of it that way.

Kate 00:05:31  I mean, that's how you know. Neil deGrasse Tyson has the career he has, right? It's not that he is the best astrophysicist on the planet. It's that he knows some stuff and he can convey it to other people in a way that we can understand. There's probably people who are the resources for Neil deGrasse Tyson, and they don't want to talk to the rest of us because they think we're dumb. And so they talk to Neil deGrasse Tyson, and then Neil deGrasse Tyson explains it to us.

Carrie 00:06:06  Okay, so we're not saying that we are the Neil deGrasse Tyson of early child care leadership, but hey, maybe we are.

Carrie 00:06:14  If you want to say that, you know that's up to you. Okay, so anyway, I want us to really help the folks who are listening embrace their authority and understand why authority is not about being bossy. It's about being brave. And and I'm not talking Merida. Red hair, shooting arrows. Even though Carrie and I like that. Right. We are talking about kind of standing up for yourself and and putting that proof behind. I know what I'm doing.

Kate 00:06:43  Yeah. I mean, so we're not saying you have to be brave and run into a building that's on fire. We're saying that, you know, stuff. And if you don't share that information, you're letting people walk around with a left shoe on a right foot, and they're going to be uncomfortable, and they're going to get blisters. and you need to have the courage to tell them, I'm sorry, but you've put your shoe on the wrong foot. And if you keep cutting funding to childcare, you're going to have a hard time having a functional workforce.

Kate 00:07:23  So, you know, I think that's an example that I feel really comfortable with is is going to people in government and saying, look, you have to fund child care because if you don't fund child care, you can't have a fully involved workforce. I can have that conversation. I'm brave enough to have that conversation that might not be the one you want to have, but it's one I can go have and somebody else might be. You need to stop trying to do standardized testing on four year olds. They don't know how to hold a number two pencil. and children at children learn best through play all through life. And if you're not sure. Talk to an adult who plays Call of Duty and ask them some questions about weapons and tactics. They have learned that not because they read books on tactics and warfare, but because they played it. And so you learn best through play. And so maybe the way that you feel confident and brave is going out and telling people, stop giving Scantron to four year olds.

Carrie 00:08:41  Okay, so Kerry's brave may also include a soapbox. So so carry it with you. but one of the things that I think is really important is how you share what you know. And so as you're building your authority, this could be you're really comfortable talking to people. you might have a podcast, you might want to start a podcast. You might need to nudge some people, who are wanting to start podcasts that.

Kate 00:09:09  You might want to be a podcast guest, because making that commitment to do a podcast. We have one friend who does it every weekday, and that is more of a commitment than Kate and I are willing to do. And we know other people who do it once a month, and that's the level of commitment that they're willing to make. But if you're a guest four times a year, that's really not a huge commitment.

Carrie 00:09:31  You know what a great way to build your authority by telling folks you've been a guest on specific podcasts. Maybe they're specific to early childhood. If you if your passion is still that role of a toddler teacher, now you have the skills and you've been around long enough and you are absolutely an awesome director.

Carrie 00:09:54  And that's why you're listening to our podcast. But your heart is still with those two year olds. Then let's find you those podcasts that are all about supporting the toddler teacher, or maybe yet the parents who have those toddlers. And that's where you need to start being a guest.

Kate 00:10:12  Yep. And that's part of why we started bringing guests onto our podcast, was to lend our authority to other early childhood experts and other people in the industry so that they can start building their own authority. So, you know, saying that you were trained by I don't I was trying to think of a famous gymnast in my brain completely shorted out.

Carrie 00:10:37  Simone.

Kate 00:10:38  Biles. Okay. So saying that you're a gymnast who was trained by Simone Biles, all of a sudden people are like, well, I want to go see her perform or him perform. Sometimes borrowing someone else's authority is how you start to build your own authority. Right. There were coaches that Simone Biles went to that were the authority, and that helped her to get where she got.

Kate 00:11:04  And now she is the authority and can lift other people up. So part of building your authority is so that you can help other people fully step into the best version of themselves.

Carrie 00:11:16  Absolutely. We forgot to set our timer. So I have absolutely no have no idea how long we've been doing this. So today you have no idea what you might get as far as podcast episode, but when we start to think about building authority and identifying whether or not we're being bossy, whether we're being brave, whether we're micromanaging, whether or not we're people pleasing, I want to just remove all of those labels that somehow somebody gave you and remind yourself you're the director, which probably means you're in charge. And with that, you got that job, like Carrie said early on, because, you know, some stuff. So sometimes we might view it as maybe a little imposter syndrome and we're like, oh, I don't know if I know enough stuff to really be a guest on a podcast. Asked. Says who?

Kate 00:12:09  So, you know, we've got to be brave enough to take a risk and to go out and shine a light.

Kate 00:12:18  there's that song that, you know, hiding your light under a bushel. No. How's that song going? I don't know, but there's a song about hiding your light under a bushel. And if you're not going out there and sharing what you know. Through writing, through speaking, through sending a letter, then you are hiding your light under a bushel. You know, stuff that other people don't. Your legislators do not know what you know about all kinds of stuff. And I think it's important for you to share that light.

Carrie 00:12:54  I love the way you worded that, because I think it's really like sometimes we get stuck. podcast, write a book, go be a speaker. But if those are things that terrify you, you can still absolutely be the authority. And sometimes it's because you're the person behind that visionary, that dreamer, that that that true extrovert that's going to literally, you know, stand in the middle and scream at the top of their lungs. But you're the person there who wrote the script.

Kate 00:13:28  Yep.

Carrie 00:13:29  Or backed up all the letters or wrote the opinion articles to the newspaper, or.

Kate 00:13:34  Who or who found the people for the person who was going to be the spokesman to talk to.

Carrie 00:13:40  Or even better. You're the number cruncher. So like if you're listening to this episode and you're like, yeah, I'm the numbers guy. Like, none of this appeals to me. I'm not the writer. I'm not this. If you're the numbers guy, we need you even more because do the research. Go figure out what is in your community, your true impact. Here's what I mean. So how many families do you have in your program? Not kids, but families. So let's just say you've got a program with 50 kids. Chances are you've got about 40 families. And out of that, you probably have 70 that probably have a job with those guesses. Be fairly accurate, probably 6070. Yeah. Okay. So you've got 70 members of the community that are working that are working because you exist.

Kate 00:14:32  And then your employees. So add them into that number.

Carrie 00:14:35  Absolutely. So if you've got 50 kids, you probably have how many employees? Carrie?

Kate 00:14:39  I don't know if they're all schoolers. You could have three. Yeah.

Carrie 00:14:43  Let's just assume they're probably 0 to 5.

Kate 00:14:46  I mean, then you're probably closer to 10 to 15.

Carrie 00:14:50  Okay. So you're back up to that almost 70 folks. So you have the economic impact of 70 people in your community. How much do people make in your community?

Kate 00:15:02  Is your a community? A the average person makes $50,000 a year. The average person makes $30,000 a year. $100,000 a year.

Carrie 00:15:11  Let's go with 30. So you have 30,000 a year times 70 people.

Kate 00:15:17  That sounds suspiciously like a quarter million dollars.

Carrie 00:15:21  I think it's one more zero. I think it's 2.1.

Kate 00:15:24  Maybe, I don't know, I don't have my. I don't have a pencil.

Carrie 00:15:28  I feel like we need a calculator. Anyway, it's a lot of money. So those data people can tell us.

Carrie 00:15:32  Make sure you email us the actual numbers.

Kate 00:15:34  How many zeros are we?

Carrie 00:15:35  How many zeros? So, are you responsible for a quarter of $1 million into your community? Are you responsible for $2.1 million? You can tell that we're not mathematicians.

Kate 00:15:46  And if I write it, I would know.

Carrie 00:15:49  Here's a pencil. So one of the things that our data folks can do is what is your economic impact? have you actually thought about as a child care center? What is your revenue? Are you $1 million business in your community? In other words, how much revenue comes through your program? This isn't profit. This is revenue.

Kate 00:16:11  Yep, it was two mil.

Carrie 00:16:12  Two mil. So not only are you $1 million business, you have an impact of 2.1. So really, you have the impact of $3.1 million in your community. And I know that there's statistics that say something like for every $1 that somebody earns, they have a $7 impact back to the community based on where they spend their money, especially if they buy local, if they're buying their groceries local and they're doing all of their entertainment local.

Carrie 00:16:39  So think about how many people you keep in business because you have a child care center, you manage or own $1 million business. You impact your community with almost $3 million. And we're talking small programs. So those of you who are listening, who have multiple locations, have 50, 60, 70 kids.

Kate 00:17:03  Or have 200.

Carrie 00:17:04  Families, yeah.

Kate 00:17:05  The 250 kids child programs. So do the math if you're that math person. But what we're trying to do is say, I want you to lead with authority, not with guilt. Don't feel like you have to make everybody happy because you're not gonna you need to have a direction that you're going, and you need to recognize in yourself that you are important and that you know some stuff that other people don't know. I know that it seems like everybody should know that this is how you guide a child through a temper tantrum. But you know from practice that there are a lot of people who do not know how to guide a child out of a temper tantrum.

Kate 00:17:54  I get that that seems like the dumbest thing in the world to you, because how can you not know how to do that? It's because you know some stuff that other people don't know.

Carrie 00:18:02  And we know that there's adults who never got that skill as a child, so they've not figured out how to get out of their own temper tantrums. But what can you do with it? You can be the data cruncher. You can be the letter writer. You can be the speechwriter. You can be the one giving the speech. You can be the one doing the educating, the advocating, the training of the next generation.

Kate 00:18:23  You can be the one training your staff. If that's if that's the level of leadership you want to be on. We're not saying that's not excellent. Find the lane of leadership that you want to go into and own your authority. Now, if you want to be that speaker, that trainer, we can help you with that. If you want to be the person who wants to write the next best selling book in early childhood.

Kate 00:18:51  We can help you with that. But find the lane that works for you, and then find the mentor, the coach that is the right person for what you need to own authentically your authority.

Carrie 00:19:09  Absolutely. I hope that you have gotten something out of today's episode. I hope that you are at least willing to stop. Do some self-awareness. Some self-reflection. Go grab a journal. Go grab a post-it note. Go grab an index card. I don't really care. Go talk inside your phone and just ramble to your phone. Or maybe call your best friend. Call your director friend and say, I just listen to this podcast. So that way you're sharing because you'll learn something new and tell them about the episode, and then tell them about your moment. Because most of us, at some point in time, whether we're listening to something or reading something, it resonates with us. And that's probably the moment for that episode, for that book, for that chapter. And it's worth sharing.

Kate 00:20:03  So own your authority.

Kate 00:20:05  You are an authority. You are not a people pleaser. You are somebody who knows their stuff. Go out there and share it with the wider world. Don't let people walk around with a left cowboy boot on a right foot.

Carrie 00:20:22  So if you learned something new today. Share the episode with someone who should know. And we can't wait to see you next week!

Marie 00:20:31  Thanks for tuning in. We love bringing you real talk and fresh insight from the world of early childhood education. Be sure to follow us on social media to stay connected and catch all of the latest episodes. And if you're planning a conference, training, or special event. Kate and Cary would love to speak to your audience. You can learn more about their keynote sessions and workshops at Kate and Carrico. If you learned something today, share the show and leave us a review below. We'll see you next time on Child Care Conversations.