In light of the experience of the global pandemic situation, it has been noted in some countries that the role and demands on leaders have changed significantly. Recent studies on leadership in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic have shown that there are many difficulties in ensuring successful leadership. At the same time, it has become clear that new strategies have emerged during this time of crisis (Pashiardis & Brauckmann-Sajkiewicz, 2022).

The present study investigates “how managers of early childhood centres in Germany pursue the goal of team development as a prerequisite for quality development and how they subsequently use external expertise for this purpose”. Based on 26 semi-structured, episodic interviews (Flick, 2014) conducted in 2014, the results will be used to discuss the question of how external impulses can be perceived by managers and used for internal quality development processes, even in times of crisis.

It is now undisputed that leadership has an impact on quality processes in ECE settings (Siraj-Blatchford & Manni, 2007). For the ECE sector, research from the Anglo-Saxon world has shown that effective settings are led by principals who develop a shared vision and strategies for team development in terms of creating a learning community (Siraj-Blatchford & Manni, 2007). Furthermore, this research supports the importance of leadership in quality assurance and the development of interventions to improve pedagogical processes within the school (Fonsén et al., 2023). Approaches that appear to have an impact on educational practice include pedagogical leadership (Fonsén et al., 2022) and distributed leadership (e.g. Harris, 2013).

Nevertheless, there is still relatively little research in this area for German-speaking countries. Leadership itself is often viewed with scepticism in educational organisations for historical reasons (Ballaschk et al., 2023). Headteachers overwhelmingly reject the concept, preferring instead the democratic/shared decision-making approach (Ballaschk et al., 2017). Nevertheless, findings suggest a positive influence of leadership on team development and (associated) better process quality (Resa et al., 2017).

In Germany, the ECE system is part of the child and youth welfare system. It is characterised by a holistic approach that combines the concepts of education, care and upbringing (ICEC, 2023). Educational professionals have a high degree of autonomy in the organisation of everyday educational life. In this context, the role of the head of an early childhood centre is not generally defined, nor is there a training guideline. In contrast to the international context, head teachers are trained less through a degree and more through traditional vocational training at a technical college (ICEC, 2023).

The present study is based on data collected as part of the evaluation study for the federal programme “Core Day Care Centres: Language and Integration”. From 2011 to the end of 2015, around 4,000 early childhood centres were funded nationwide to support them in their task of providing language education for children under three years of age, children with a migration background and children from educationally disadvantaged families. Against the background of the intervention's ambition, an improvement in process quality was to be achieved through an improvement in structural quality (additional expertise for language education) as well as professional support (Roßbach et al., 2016). The qualitative interview study conducted within this framework should be understood as a snapshot (Flick, 2014) and complements the evaluation study with its own contribution to theory development. This study stands on its own with its research project and is not a partial evaluation study of the federal programme.

For this study, a sample of 26 headteachers was selected who had participated in the initiative 'Core day care centres: language and integration'. The sample was selected in the federal states of Berlin and Brandenburg and was intended to represent the German average in terms of gender distribution, age and educational level (Federal Statistical Office, 2016). To ensure comparability, only large ECEC facilities (with more than 15 employees, Lange, 2013) were selected, where head teachers are released from childcare duties. The study followed the APA ethical guidelines for conducting research with human participants. The project was commissioned by the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth. Semi-structured, episodic interviews were conducted to learn as much as possible about the heads’ self-concept as leaders and their daily leadership routines. The interviews combined narratives with more focused questions (Flick, 2014) and were designed to include both episodic-narrative knowledge and semantic-conceptual knowledge (Flick, 2011) about the implicit understanding of leadership and their daily routines, including the relationship with the team as well as their role within the federal programme. Self-concept was defined as an implicit understanding of their own professional role as a school leader based on implicit leadership theories. Implicit (leadership) theories are based on everyday knowledge as the quintessence of personal experience and traditional knowledge (Aretz, 2007). According to Aretz (2007), these theories are believed to influence leadership performance. The questionnaire consisted of eleven main questions and four follow-up questions. For example, the following questions were asked: “How would you describe your position?”, “Does the concept of leadership actually play a role in your work? What does it mean to you? Can you give me an example?” Due to the preselection of the sample, the procedure of thematic coding was chosen for the subsequent analyses (Flick, 2011). In this article, only the results of the analysis of the thematic areas self-concept, strategies for action, daily tasks and routines as well as leader-team-relationship and the role of head teachers within the federal programme are presented. For the further analysis of these thematic areas, the corresponding text passages from the cases were compiled again and analysed comparatively. The programme Atlas.ti was used to support the analyses. To ensure the quality of the present study, criteria for qualitative empirical social research (Seale, 1999) were applied (e.g. intersubjective replicability, theoretical saturation, empirical anchoring).

The results show that the principals interviewed stated that they see themselves more as the ones who create a good team atmosphere and remind the staff of the pedagogical guidelines and objectives. Regarding the question of whether headteachers define themselves as leaders, it is clear that those who reject the leadership role for themselves focus more on positioning themselves in the team in their routines than leaders who define themselves as leaders. Heads who do not define themselves as leaders tend to focus their daily actions on avoiding or balancing team conflicts ('moderating internal conflicts in the team'). In contrast, managers who see themselves as leaders describe their position as being outside the team as "something very important" in order to be able to “take countermeasures” and “recognise what is actually happening inside”. With regard to the concrete task of team development, the results show that most leaders are still busy “working out a position in the team” and are therefore not yet sufficiently engaged in the task of team development. In this context, they state that they sometimes experience it as a “personal difficulty” to bring professional pedagogical input into the team. Headteachers who define themselves as leaders have a diverse collection of team development routines. The development of a common vision is as important to them as the professional development of the team. When asked how school leaders use external professional input, respondents indicated that they encourage professional development by inviting external speakers. Overall, it appears that the school leaders interviewed rarely discuss the federal programme in the context of their day-to-day work. Headteachers who see themselves as leaders actively use the additional expert to work on issues that they consider during the exchange with the team (e.g. strategies to improve cooperation with parents).

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