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Early Child Development and Care

ISSN: 0300-4430 (Print) 1476-8275 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/gecd20

A study of Swedish preschool directors’perspectives on leadership and organization

Johannes Lunneblad & Susanne Garvis

To cite this article: Johannes Lunneblad & Susanne Garvis (2019) A study of Swedish preschooldirectors’ perspectives on leadership and organization, Early Child Development and Care, 189:6,938-945, DOI: 10.1080/03004430.2017.1354855

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2017.1354855

Published online: 24 Jul 2017.

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A study of Swedish preschool directors’ perspectives onleadership and organizationJohannes Lunneblad and Susanne Garvis

Department of Education, Communication and Learning, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden

ABSTRACTIn the last decade, neo-liberal movements have entered parts of theSwedish society, bringing increased accountability and publicmanagement to preschool (catering for children aged 1–5 years). Whileearly childhood education research has generally focused on preschool,children and teachers, few studies have explored the perspectives ofpreschool directors in contemporary times. This study helps fill this voidby exploring the perspectives of eleven preschool directors aboutleadership and associated organization within Swedish preschools. Usingcontent analysis, key findings suggest preschool directors take on manyleadership roles within a preschool as they work with teachers, parentsand upper administration leaders. The roles are sometimes conflictingand create unintended tension with teachers and parents as neo-liberalperspectives emerge.

ARTICLE HISTORYReceived 27 June 2017Accepted 10 July 2017

KEYWORDSLeadership; publicmanagement; Sweden;directors; preschool

Introduction

Leadership within preschool contexts is a growing field around the world, with emerging researchabout types of leadership (Alvesson & Sandberg, 2013; Sims, Forrest, Semann, & Slattery, 2015), influ-ence of managerialism (Hall, 2013) and the intensification of performativity (Kilderry, 2015). As pre-schools become more structured, there is a growing awareness of the role of leadership. Thedirector in Sweden is considered to be a guaranty for the curriculum to be fulfilled. The role as a direc-tor and the juridical responsibilities are regulated by the educational act (SFS 2010:800). Mostly themission oversees several preschools. To meet these demands, a majority of the directors have a uni-versity exam in leadership. The leadership programme taught at the university is for both preschooldirectors and school leaders. The staff in the preschools may be qualified (bachelor level) or unqua-lified (high school qualification). Often a qualified staff member (teacher) will work with two unqua-lified staff (assistants) in a preschool team. Within Sweden there are also no regulations about groupsize (staff to child ratios). Group size is a decision made by individual preschools based on resourcesand finance.

Preschools in Sweden cater for children aged 1–5 years of age. Preschools in Sweden have con-tinually ranked high in OECD measurements (2012) with a general perception that overall qualityis high. In 2012, 84% children were enrolled in the Swedish preschool, with 50% of the childrenaged 3 years and above (Statistics Sweden, 2014). In Sweden, a municipality, a foundation, or acompany may be the organization that performs the nationally regulated education, including pre-schools (SFS 2010:800). The organization gives the director the financial conditions and can, to somedegree, choose a profile and have local goals. Based on the conditions the director is given, the direc-tor is responsible for results and to evaluations in relation to the national goals. The director need

© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

CONTACT Susanne Garvis susanne.garvis@gu.se

EARLY CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND CARE2019, VOL. 189, NO. 6, 938–945https://doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2017.1354855

thereby to be familiar with both the general and the specific conditions that form the basis for thework of the preschool (Imsen, Blossing, & Moos, 2016). This has been discussed as the directorneeds to balance the accountability of the centralized juridical demands from the state, with thedecentralized responsibility for social and economic conditions and demands from parents (Ball,Maguire, & Braun, 2012; Rönnberg, 2014). As yet, few studies have explored challenges of preschoolleadership within the Swedish context.

This article explores leadership in Swedish preschools. Through the use of interviews, the perspec-tives of preschool directors are explored. The preschool directors also provide reflection on pedago-gical leadership in relation to parents and the influences of budgets on their leadership.

Previous research

In the last two decades, new public management has been the dominant paradigm in the publicsector. This has enabled the adaptation of radical changes in the view of education and how itshould be managed. Since the early 1990s there has been a transformation of public service provisionvia the replacement of public administration, to a set of neo-liberal policies that have prioritized freechoice and a management ideology originated from the private sector (Imsen et al., 2016). The core ofthis shift has been the development of educational quasi-markets in which educational institutionsare intended to compete with one another to secure the choice of parents as consumers (Hall, 2013;Rönnberg, 2014).

Within Sweden there has been the decentralization of the municipalities to meet the demands inthe new public management ideology (Bunar & Ambrose, 2016). In reality, this has meant a greaterresponsibility for the preschool directors. Preschool directors are responsible for employing new staff,having control over the economy and the educational development. This also includes working withdissatisfied parents, organizing extra costs when having children with special needs and organizingunexpected changes in the financial framework given for the operations (Ball et al. 2012). At the sametime the notion of distributed leadership exists in the preschool, where all employees working in thepreschool think of themselves as leaders, growing stronger together (Hall, 2013).

In some of the previous research about leadership in preschool settings, distributed leadership isnot only a key concept, but also a concept with positive associations. According to Aubrey, Godfrey,and Harris (2012), there are three distinctive elements of distributed leadership that have a direct res-onance for leadership in preschools. Distributed leadership means a change in the view on leadershipfrom a phenomenon departing from the individuals, to a perspective that empathizes leaderships asproperty of a group or network (Hard & Jónsdóttir, 2013). This opens up the definitions of what can becategorized as leadership. Distributed leadership is a form of trusting and supportive ethos that leadsto collective action. This implies inter-dependency rather than dependency, which support and leadto collaborative ways of working (Aubrey et al., 2012). In summary, distributed leadership is a form ofsocial distribution of leadership where the leadership functions ‘spread over number of individualsthrough the interaction and collective efforts’.

However, distributed leadership as the consequences of the decentralization of public sector hasalso been problematized in previous research. Research also shows that there can be a risk of con-fusion and uncertainty about who has the responsibility with distributed leadership if there is alack of structure of how the power and responsibility should be shared (Heikka, Halttunen, & Wani-ganayake, 2016). Scholars argue that the influence by (New Public Management) NPM has createdcontradictions and conflicts in the meaning of leadership in public sectors as education. The roleas a leader has transformed from being an bureaucrat with a mandate to follow centrally set guide-lines, to become a financially responsible leaders with the task to strategic communicate clearinternal goals, build a reliable external image and to be accountable to the outsourcer (Ball et al.,2012).

Research has also given attention to how preschool leaders distinguish their role and what theydefine as their duties. In a overview of previous research, Sims et al. (2015) argue that findings shows

EARLY CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND CARE 939

that ‘new’ leaders often raised unrealistic expectations on them self and was taking on a traditionalrole as leader. This lead to that they find it hard to take advises but also created high expectations onthem from their staff. According to Sims et al. (2015), a common way to handle complexity is to breakit down to different divisions, such as pedagogical leadership, administrative leadership and organ-izational leadership, including responsibility for the relations to the personnel. In an analysis on thedifferences and similarities between preschool directors in Australia and Scandinavia, Sims et al.(2015) found that both leaders in Australia and Scandinavia had a strong focus on educationalissues (cf. Rönnberg, 2014). The difference was that while the pedagogical issues in Australia wasabout accountability and outcomes, so was the pedagogical issues in Scandinavia about social peda-gogy with a focus on the relationship teacher–children.

Focus of study

This study focuses on three questions within the Swedish context:

(1) How do preschool directors view positive leadership?(2) How do preschool directors view pedagogical leadership in relation to parents?(3) How do preschool directors think the economy influences preschool leadership?

Methods

The study was designed as an interview study with preschool directors in one of the greater cities inSweden. During the study 11 preschool directors were interviewed. One of the preschool directorswas responsible for 6–11 preschools depending on how many divisions at each preschool. In total,each one of the preschool directors had approximately 80–120 employees and approximately 550children in their units.This model with large units has recently become common in Sweden, wherethe preschool director has the responsibility for 3–4 preschools with 40–60 employees. All preschooldirectors were female and aged between 45 and 63 years. A majority had a long experience ofworking in preschools: some of them started as preschool teachers in the 1980s, while others inthe –1990s. The experience of being a preschool director varied between 5 and 15 years.

All interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed and lasted from 45 minutes to 1 hour. Theinterview questions were based on an interview guide, including four main sections: (1) questionsfocused on the preschool directors’ education background and work experience; (2) questions onhow they view their leadership; (3) questions on the curriculum and relations to children andparents and (4) questions on how they viewed the influence of economical frames. Prior to interviews,all participants in the study were informed about the aim of the study and gave their consent to par-ticipate (Vetenskapsrådet, 2011).

Answering questions in an interview entails a selection of what’s relevant in regard to the topicand the situation. This includes a duality, partly capturing the preschool directors’ subjective under-standing of their work, and partly influenced by the curriculum and the municipalities’ organization(Goffman, 1974). The preschools leader’s narratives should therefore be understood as dialogic incharacter, and as a result of how differently oriented views intersect in their narratives, whichbecome arenas for struggle over definitions and hegemony (Jenkins, 2000).

Using a content analysis approach, the analysis has aimed to derive themes from the data with thepreschool directors (Silverman, 2006). The intention has been to create general themes that reflecttheir understanding of their leadership, relations to the parents and how economical conditions influ-ence their work. The different analytical sections are derived from interview quotes from this analyticprocess. Using this methodological approach, a double purpose is present. Firstly, there is interest toidentify, describe and analyse contextual meanings, representing the local conditions for preschooldirectors. Secondly, there is the interest to generate wider understanding about how policy

940 J. LUNNEBLAD AND S. GARVIS

ideologies outside the local contexts being studied influence the preschool directors’ work. Findingsare reported in the next section.

Findings

1. How do preschool directors view their leadership?

The eleven Swedish preschool directors spoke about their leadership in terms of three different roles.The first role was that of a coach, where Swedish preschools directors were implementing a distrib-uted leadership approach. The preschool directors suggested that it was their responsibility tosupport the other staff in understanding shared leadership and take an active role to participate indecision-making. For example, directors said:

I am leading the pedagogical work via my own pedagogical work and with a developmental team. When I am outin the preschools I am very much looking forward to helping others and discussing issues through dialogue I wantto have participation. I want as many people as possible involved in decisions and suggestions for change in thepreschool. (Preschool director, 3)

I work a lot with coaching leadership and organise meetings to create a ‘we’ feeling… I feel like the staff havebecome a mature group. I feel that through my leadership they take responsibility and participate. If somethingis wrong we can talk and fix it. I have worked hard to get this team together, so now they can exchange collegialexperiences. It is important for me to encourage that. (Preschool director, 8)

All of the preschool directors recognized the importance of planning and development for thepreschool staff, with a strong focus and commitment to pedagogic development. They realizedthat their role was to coach and support all of the teachers and provide a space for joint participationand problem-solving. The second role of the preschool director was therefore to ‘organise’ and be aprovider of support for pedagogical work. This is demonstrated in the comments from preschooldirector 4:

I see my role as creating equal conditions for all children to succeed. That I should be the one who is developingand creating the environment for educators so they can do the best job possible with children. (Preschool direc-tor, 4)

The third role that the preschool directors take on is that of a boss. As a director, they may have totake charge of situations and shape directions for the future. As a boss, they need to be aware of localand national changes as well as how preschools achieve the curriculum goals given. The preschooldirectors referred to implementing the goals of policy and curriculum for children as a form of‘business’. It was their overall responsibility to fulfil the work and ensure high standards were met.Part of the approach as also to take charge of shaping the preschool and ensuring that the basic phil-osophy of democracy was embedded. As one preschool director commented:

It is important for me to take a stand, because of the democracy mission, which is my strongest task, in relation tothe curriculum and the preschool day… I have to work out how to manage many things based on the ideas ofmanaging a business. (Preschool director, 7)

Overall, Swedish preschool directors view their leadership as three roles, coach, organizer and theboss. While the three roles sometimes complement each other, they may also contradict eachother in terms of wanting a distributed leadership approach but also trying to be the boss for theoverall ‘business’ within the preschool.

2. How do preschool directors view pedagogical leadership in relation to parents?

The second question was designed to investigate views on leadership with parents.As part of pedagogical leadership, preschool directors stated that it was important to have good

relationships with parents and that the preschool image portrayed was highly important. At each of

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the preschools, the results of the parent satisfaction survey were also important. Each preschool isrequired to survey the parents each year. The survey appears to act as a form of organizationquality. As a result, the director tries to follow what parents want, based on findings from thesurvey. Some of the preschool directors described the survey as a form of controlling publicmanagement:

I think what disturbs me I just how much trust and belief is placed on the parenting survey and other so-calledsurveys. This new public management idea I think violates the curriculum and creates problems of how we aregoing to work with it. (Preschool director 2)

The preschool director stated that what was communicated by parents was however important forconsideration but may not be possible. The directors suggested that what most parents reallywanted was smaller group sizes for children, more activities at the preschool and more staff at thepreschool. This however was difficult with budgetary constraints. One director commented:

When parents are responding to surveys, they are doing something like this. Sometimes we feel they are trying toinfluence us with group size and staffing and other things. These are the things they are interested in, but it is notso easy for us to change things because of political decisions. (Preschool director, 11)

Communication with parents also took many different forms to try and make information about thepreschool more accessible. This included facebook, blogs and newsletter to allow parents to see whatchildren are doing and to be able to have conversations with their child.

The directors also spoke of problems when working with some parents. Sometimes the directorhad to defend the profession as well as the objectives at the preschool. Comments included:

Working with parents can be difficult sometimes. Parents want to discuss things about the content and organ-isation of the preschool more. Some of these things we are not interested in, so it can be difficult from severalperspectives. (Preschool director, 2)

We are not able to do what every parent wishes. We still have to listen and try and think if it is possible or if there isanything we can do. We also ask ‘why does the parent think that and how can we face that?’. We talk openly,sometimes disagreeing with parents. I think it is important. It is important for the profession and the professionalrole. Professionals have experience in the area and should be treated well. (Preschool director, 10)

The daily experience of parents also emerged as a key category when working with parents. Thisincluded the daily encounter between staff and parents. The preschool directors realized it wastheir role to coach and support preschool teachers in working with parents. One preschool directorquoted:

I work with the teachers so they have the skills and ability to meet parents, so there is often a great deal of trust inthe preschool. I have also given consideration to the morning and afternoon response and how the parent mightsee their child. I think we need to think about the individual experience and there is much work to be done at thistime. (Preschool director, 1)

Working with parents can be difficult for preschool directors. They must consider the concerns of theparents and try and find solutions. They must also support staff in providing positive communicationwith parents and develop a positive image of preschool to parents so they are satisfied.

3. How do preschool directors think the economy influences leadership?

Two major categories emerged when preschool directors talked about the influence of the economyon leadership. Firstly, the economy came first in preschool decision-making. All of the preschooldirectors discussed that there were insufficient resources and too many children in groups. Thiscreated tensions with parents and the preschool teachers who wanted to be supported to achievethe pedagogical goals for children and to have smaller group sizes so all children could be supported.Both limited resources and large group size was a result of budget implications. While preschooldirectors wanted to put the pedagogical goals first, in reality, the economy and budget of the

942 J. LUNNEBLAD AND S. GARVIS

preschool came first to allow the preschool to stay open. The preschool directors also stated that ifthe budget was not kept, they were heavily criticized by members of the kommun. This meant thatsometimes, instead of an educated (university bachelor graduate) teacher, an uneducated preschoolteacher or a temporary staff was employed to allow the budget to work. Again, such decisions createtensions with families and other permanent staff in the preschool. Comments included:

I understand that we will never be able to get more money, but money is important to the context when talkingabout group size for children for their wellbeing. Another problem is the number of qualified preschool teachers.If you have more preschool teachers, you have more children in the group, as a qualified preschool teacher ismore expensive … We cannot do as we have always done. (Preschool director, 4)

At the moment the ratio is 6 children to 1 staff. Sometimes it has been 5.8, 5.9 or 6.1. Because we have reached afinancial balance, we are now working on how to reduce the number of children on the group based on thefinances we have available. We have had higher at 7 children and that is not good. The economy drive decisions.(Preschool director, 11)

The second category that emerged was that the economy shaped the organization of the preschools,with the preschool often having to change structure to fit current budgets. This also meant that theorganization of the preschool changed from year to year. One preschool director stated:

It has looked different over the years. I mean we have to decide what is best with the money we have. You are alsogoing to say that if we had a lot more money maybe we could do ´so and só, but we have to address the basictasks first and make sure things are ok. The money is fixed so we just deal with it. (Preschool director, 5)

The finance is tough and you can’t stand and hide. We always adapt to what the changes are… so it has been thecase that the economy is superior to everything else. So the economy changes the resources we have and weneed to re-organise. (Preschool director, 11)

Overall the influence of the economy may explain why preschool directors also take on the role of‘boss of the business’ in the first question. The economy appears to drive the overall operations ofthe Swedish preschool and does not allow desired outcomes with organization around group sizeand the hiring of qualified staff.

Discussion

The preschool directors in this study appeared to have conflicting roles in leadership. While the pre-school directors wanted to have distributed leadership with staff and allow them to be supported andcoached, the preschool directors also had to be the ultimate ‘boss’ in charge of the preschool. Pre-vious research suggests that when a new public management agenda is in the public sector, distrib-uted leadership can sometimes be problematic because there may be uncertainty about who takesresponsibility (Heikka et al., 2016). In this case, the preschool directors try and take on both roles tomake it clear that they take responsibility for the preschool. This also includes becoming a financiallyresponsible leader (Ball et al., 2012), which is described as a leader with the task to communicate clearinternal goals, build a reliable external image and be accountable to parents and the community.Creating a positive image to parents and the external community appeared important.

Accountability also emerged as an important topic for discussion where findings from the parentsurvey were addressed. Previous research has also shown the influence of surveys, evaluations andinspections for how leaders in education perform their work (Ball et al., 2012; Rönnberg, 2014). Some-times however the preschool director would have to defend the actions of the preschool to parents(such as the size of groups of children and the number of bachelor qualified staff) to explain whydecisions were made. Likewise, sometimes the preschool directors had to justify the early childhoodeducation profession to parents, moving the director into a different task as a leader.

The many roles of leadership in early childhood identified by Sims et al. (2015) can also be foundwithin the Swedish preschool directors. They were responsible for pedagogical leadership, adminis-tration leadership and organizational leadership. The Swedish preschool directors appeared to take

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on all of these roles as director, with some roles sometimes competing against others. For example,while the preschool directors wanted to implement pedagogical practices and support preschool tea-chers with the development of learning activities, budget decisions meant that this was not alwayspossible. Preschools have a set budget to work within; so, sometimes compromises had to be made.

Sims et al. (2015) have suggested that leadership in Australian preschools is more focused onaccountability, while Scandinavian preschools pay attention to pedagogical issues, especially therelationship on teacher–children. This study however suggests that accountability in Swedish pre-schools is also strong with the new public management agenda, driving overall decisions in the pre-school with accountability to parents and the kommun that funds the preschool. While pedagogicalissues are considered important for the preschool, overall leadership decisions are made on fulfillingbudgetary requirements for the kommun and achieving parent satisfaction.

Overall the role of the Swedish preschool director appears complex. At different points in timethey need to take on different leadership roles as they work with children, families, preschool staffand the kommun. The external image of the preschool is important not at least the local reputationof the preschool that’s communicated through parents to future-parents (Bunar & Ambrose, 2016).Often the preschool directors also have to take on the role of being a ‘financially responsibleleader’ (working within budgets) to make decisions about group sizes and employment of qualifiedstaff. In this way, we argue that the preschool directors work within a new public managementagenda where children’s interests, perspectives and needs are not the main focus for decision-making. While it is considered important, budgets and accountability influence all decisions. Thiscan be interpreted as the leaders have to take on different roles to meet different requirementsfrom different stakeholders. The performance of a positive leadership is thereby also to knowwhat should be communicated to whom and when (Goffman, 1974).

Conclusion

This study has provided insights into the perspectives of preschool directors in Sweden. It shows thecomplexity preschool directors face in their daily work as they navigate coaching and working withstaff, working with parents and parental concerns and the influence of the budget on preschooldecisions. The preschool directors describe their leadership as three roles: coach, organizer andoverall boss within the growing neo-liberal culture in Sweden. More research is needed into thisunder-represented group in Swedish early childhood education research to provide more insightsinto the influence of preschool directors and how they can best be supported to achieve their out-comes. As Swedish preschool directors are responsible for the quality of the preschool, they are con-sidered very important in supporting all areas within early childhood education.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Johannes Lunneblad http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9450-030XSusanne Garvis http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2793-4466

Notes on contributor

Johannes Lunneblad has a PhD in Education and works as an Associate Professor of Education at the Department of Edu-cation, Communication and Learning, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. His main research interests are in the field ofearly childhood, critical pedagogy, urban education, and multicultural education. E-mail: johannes.lunneblad@ped.gu.se

944 J. LUNNEBLAD AND S. GARVIS

Susanne Garvis works as a Professor of early childhood education at the Department of Education, Communication andLearning, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Her research interests include quality and policy in early childhood edu-cation, mixed methods research and family perspectives. E-mail: susanne.garvis@gu.se

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