Reference no: EM133439503

Case Study: You have been appointed direcior of a 106 place LDC privately owned centre called Bambino Early Learning Centre. You have 18 educators and 2 admin staff as part of your leam. You have been in the role for approximately 3 months. You noticed on arrival to the service the overall culture of the service and what appeared to be low staff morale.
Since starting you have found out that Marcia, who has been working at the centre for the past 8 years, had applied but was unsuccessful in obtaining the Director's position. Her communication towards others including yourself is passive aggressive indicating that she was upset with management's decision. Her attitude appears to be reflecting on other staff negatively and she has been observed whispering and complaining to other staff about management and aspects of her role.
In the past month you have been very concerned about the number of families leaving the service citing staff culture. Complaints made by families included comments such as:
• "The staff here are so unprofessional".
"They (staff) always seem cranky".
• "My child cries every morning that she attends because she doesn't want to go".
"Why does my friend's child have this amazing portfolio but mine has like 3 things in it.
Teachers shouldn't have favourites".
• "Staff are rude they don't even look up when I arrive. How would they even know that the right child is going home with the right parent".
You have noticed that morale appears very low amongst most team members. You overheard one of your most experienced educators say she hates working here because she's always picking up after other people and doing their job.
There appears to be a lot of tension within the whole team. At meetings staff often sit with arms crossed, displaying negative body language and rarely contribute to discussions.
You have also noticed that 6 educators seem to have not completed any monthly observations for children's portfolios despite receiving programming time for these duties. They have also not contributed to the daily diary in the last month leaving this role to other educators. You have mentioned both of these issues to the individuals involved but they just say "yeah, I haven't had time".
As a leader we need to address these issues; create a cultural change in your organisation; and get everyone to work together as a team, take responsibility for their own tasks, and contribute to the team. for

this you will need to have everyone's participation and involvement.

Vision of the organisation:
To be leaders in Early Childhood Education and Care by providing a safe space for all children. families, team members and our community to work together to grow, create, innovate and develop a sense of belonging.
Goals of the organisation:

Questions:

1. Developing educational environment where children are given the opportunity to develop creativity and imagination and are treated as equals.
2. To provide a welcoming, inclusive, and caring environment where children, families and educators have strong reciprocal relationships with each other, and children develop a sense of belonging to the centre by being valued, and respected.

1. What are some of the possible causes for the above behaviour from the team in the scenario?
2. Identify the strategies you would implement to encourage your team to open up about issues concerning them? Consider verbal and non-verbal techniques.
3. How could you support Marcia to feel valued and part of the team and gain her as ally ??

4. Identify overall strategies would you implement as a leader to change the culture of this organisation and ensure team effectiveness.
5. Identify four desirable behaviours and practices you would role model to other team members to ensure team cohesion.
6. Identify three strategies you would implement to facilitate team member input into planning, decision making and operational aspects of team tasks.

7. Going forward, identify how you will provide feedback to team members on team effort and contributions. Consider verbal and non-verbal strategies.