The aim of this study is to critically discuss the concept of power and how it could be used as an emergent and enabling force in the work community. The earlier research in the field of early childhood education and care (ECEC) has paid attention to the troubled nature of power and reluctance to discuss power and authority in the context of ECEC leadership  (Ebbeck & Waniganayake, 2003; Fonsén et al., 2021). The patriarchal echo of power (Hard, 2006, 2008; Hard & Jónsdóttir, 2013) and the traditional perception of it as something to be owned, gained and holded, do not fit the ECEC  (Varis, 1989; McNay, 1996). Moreover, the highly feminized workforce, a strong discourse of niceness informed by the ethic of care may also contribute to the avoidance (Hard & Jonsdottir, 2013; Lund, 2021).

To introduce a new perspective, the power approach of Foucault (1982, 1982b, 1980c) is employed in this paper. According to Foucault, power is the name for a relational occurrence which can be found in all reciprocal relations of the ECEC community. Power relations are implemented in the pedagogical discourse, in which professionals are able to constitute both positive and negative meanings, impacting the shared pedagogical work in the community (Fonsén & Keski-Rauska, 2018; Fonsén et al.2021). This discourse also produces, argues and exchanges pedagogical knowledge, which is the power in the relations (McNay, 1996). Pedagogical power-knowledge is manifested in the interrelations of leaders and working communities. In these connections, leaders control valuable discourse in order to influence on the employees, who should have similar possibility to denote their opinions  (Foucault, 1982b, 1980c). This creates the power-struggles in ECEC communities when its members argue about valuable pedagogical praxis and its implementation in the community (Varpanen et al., 2021). These struggles are vital for the power to be released and occur as power and resistance do not exclude each other (Foucault, 1980c, 1982; McNay, 1996).

However, we have to recognize that power is not only a visible struggle between subjects. Power today is more like guidance and control, where the focus is to promote employee empowerment and motivation  (Miller & Rose, 2010; McNay, 1996). Moreover, as social relations are not symmetrical in ECEC, leaders hold the formal power in the centers and teachers are pedagogical leaders in the working groups of teachers and nurses. This leads to different roles of social domination, determining what can be said from a certain status (McNay, 1996). Therefore, when leaders are closely attached to their centers while holding the formal power, this may create a tension between the organizational culture and the culture lead inside the ECEC center (Hjelt & Karila, 2021). The connection between ECEC administration and centers is pivotal in creating decontrol, professional possibilities and heterogeneous discourse in the community. Otherwise, there is a risk that collaboration inside the ECEC center becomes just a method of managerial control, targeting the status quo and creating a culture of conservation (Colmer et al., 2014; Hjelt & Karila, 2021; Kangas et al., 2015). Yet not much is known of the ECEC leaders’ perceptions of both formal power and  the non-positional power of employees. Examining the power gives us the opportunity to create a more sophisticated understanding of it as a way to use knowledge and legitimate certain pedagogical discourse (Fonsén et al, 2021). In this paper, we aim to achieve a deeper understanding on what is the leader's relation to power and their relation to the power in the working community.  The following research question was set:

 RQ: How do leaders interpret power and their relation to the ECEC working community?  

The qualitative data was collected in 2021 in ECEC leaders in-service training at the University of Helsinki. Participants were from different municipalities surrounding the Helsinki metropolitan area. The data consisted of essays (N=46) which were pre-assignments for the training. In data analysis we applied actantial analysis, developed by A.J. Greimas (1979) to make visible the elements of power and leader role in relation to the working community. Actantial analysis and building the actantial model is beneficial for theoretical analysis of thematized actions and their relations especially in literary texts or images. Furthermore, it is possible to reveal the scheme or deeper meaning of the story behind the activity while examining roles and power relations of the action (Bouissac, 2007; Greimas, 1979; Wang & Roberts, 2005). The main principle of actantial model is that all actions can be broken down into six actants which are related to each other. Actants are grouped on the basis of their functions in three axises (Greimas, 1979; Héber, 2020). Firstly, in the axis of desire, the subject is the central actor of the process who desires and searches for an object which can be individual, collective or abstract. In the axis of transmission there is the sender, which is a motivator or one that forces the subject to reach the object and is essential for the subject’s activity. The receiver on its behalf is the one who benefits from subjects of this motivation (Greimas, 1979; Héber, 2020). Lastly there is the axis of power, where there is the helper who contributes to the goal and an opponent who resists the subject's achievements. Helpers and opponents are also matters of context depending on a subject and time as they can be partial helpers and opponents for either subject, object or both. In this actantial analysis process, organizing the data was conducted with the Atlas.ti coding program. The aim of the analysis is to place different actors to aforementioned six actants, explain and justificate their placement in the model. In the first phase we defined the subject and the object of the model and after that the sender and receiving actants. Lastly, the factors that helped or resisted releasing the power, were defined (Greimas, 1979; Hebér, 2020).

Actantial model revealed contradictions in the concept of power and sharing it with the working community. Power concept was mentioned twice in this data and substitutes like responsibility, duty, charge or task were used. All leaders argued their positional leader status as a justification to hold and monitor the power control. However, the leader's relation to power control was contradictory. In the first group leaders were subject-senders. Holding power was a leader's responsibility, but their duty was to release it to the community. Leaders were motivators and releasing power was a foundation of modern leadership. The second group of leaders were subject-opponents. Power was attached to the leader position but the leader was one to control as it was a more functional way of leading. Power release was a result of good circumstances and the leader was one to evaluate when to control or release the power. Resources suchs as competent employees created justification to do this. In the light of these preliminary results, power was both restrictive and promotive. Leaders' perception of power was a determinative factor in power release. Therefore, in the future we need more awareness of power as a concept and the multiple ways it can be used in the community. Discourse, control and guidance are ways to use power and the traditional image of disciplinary and subjunctive power needs complementation. This is a way to increase positive collaboration and change communities' perception towards the leader role. If power is understood as a position, we are missing the positive power approach of Foucault (McNay, 1996) as an emerging possibility. Activating power requires resistance, a counter-force, to avoid stagnation. Leaders can operate both as an active sender or an opponent for this process, depending on what is the aim of the power: to control or collaborate.

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