“If somebody wants to step into leadership, they need to have opportunities to lead, and they need to know we’ll be there to catch them if they wobble.”

Clare Crowther, Director

This episode explores why collaboration, not hierarchy, builds sustainable teams in Early Years settings. Continuing on from where we left off in episode 12, we’re going even deeper into Early Years leadership, moving beyond titles and job roles and exploring what it really means to grow leadership from the ground up. From coaching your Early Years team day-to-day to developing new leaders in post, we’re sharing what works, what’s challenging, and how we support our staff to thrive.

We talk openly about succession planning, the emotional side of saying goodbye to talented team members, and how we create a culture where leadership is distributed, and everyone feels empowered to make a difference, no matter their role.

This is a must listen episode for anyone leading a setting, growing a team, or stepping into leadership themselves.

In this episode:

• How we develop future leaders through real responsibility and supported risk-taking
• Why succession planning starts with coaching, mentoring and high expectations
• What “stretching the elastic” means when developing staff
• The importance of distributive leadership and mini leadership roles across the team
• How we structure roles like planning champions, environment leads and room reps
• How to hold challenging conversations with professionalism and care
• How we build leadership into our supervisions, CPD, appraisals and team culture
• What “tribing” means at Atelier, and how it supports team belonging, loyalty and retention
• Real stories of apprentices who’ve grown into Atelier leaders
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Find out more:

Website and newsletter: ateliernursery.co.uk

Instagram: @ateliernurseryltd

Consultancy enquiries: Contact us via our website

Together, we’ll unlock the potential for incredible growth and learning.

Atelier Talks is a Decibelle Creative original podcast

Produced by Decibelle Creative – decibellecreative.com / @decibelle_creative

Keywords: early years leadership, growing leaders in EYFS, early years succession planning, coaching nursery teams, CPD in early years, early years supervisions, nursery staff development, stretch the elastic, Reggio-inspired leadership, planning champions EYFS, key person culture, staff retention nursery, emotionally intelligent leadership, building team culture, Johari window early years, confronto, trust in early years teams