It starts with us: Looking inwards as educational leaders

Education consultant Joanne Lo explores how self-reflection and personal wellbeing are essential foundations for effective leadership in schools and early years settings. Drawing on mindfulness and social-emotional learning, she shares practical strategies for fostering resilience, building supportive cultures, and modelling wellbeing as an educational leader.

Read Joanne's article here:

https://thevoiceofearlychildhood.com/it-starts-with-us-looking-inwards-as-educational-leaders/

This episode is sponsored by Funding Loop

Funding Loop automates the process for nurseries of collecting funding forms from parents and typing that information into council portals. Funding Loop is used by over 2000 nurseries including over 80% of the top 25 nursery chains in the UK including Busy Bees.

To find out more visit: https://www.fundingloop.co.uk/home

Our 2026 conference info & tickets:

https://thevoiceofearlychildhood.com/early-years-conference-2026/

Listen to more:

If you enjoyed this episode, you might also like:

· Accidental leadership in early years by Jenny Weidner: https://thevoiceofearlychildhood.com/accidental-leadership-in-early-years/

· My experience of burnout as a Black manager by Lorraine Kara: https://thevoiceofearlychildhood.com/my-experience-with-burnout-as-a-black-manager/

· Supporting employee wellbeing by Enya Last: https://thevoiceofearlychildhood.com/supporting-employee-wellbeing/

Get in touch and share your voice:

Do you have thoughts, questions or feedback? Get in touch here! – https://thevoiceofearlychildhood.com/contact/

Episode break down:

00:00 – Introductions
03:00 – Invisible pressures carried by leaders
03:45 – Non-verbal communication
04:30 – Normalising every single emotion
09:00 – Giving yourself permission to just 'be'
10:00 – Noticing how your emotions affect your body
12:00 – Setting goals for the week or day ahead, then reflect
14:00 – Stress-ees becoming stress-ors!
15:00 – Having a sunny disposition
16:30 – Using language that serves you, language of kindness
17:20 – Zone of control
19:00 – Children emotionally checking in with themselves
21:00 – Creating a safe space to just 'be'
23:00 – Reflective practices
24:00 – Checking in with your team
25:30 – How do we 'sell' this to our teams?
26:20 – Flattening the hierarchy & tuning into passions
27:00 – Connecting with each team member
28:00 – Toxic vs positive culture examples
29:00 – Creating a climate of belonging
31:00 – What are we doing that isn't supporting our teams?
33:00 – Understanding different cultural contexts
33:45 – Observing your teams as well as children
35:00 – Seeking to understand before judging
35:50 – Body language stats!
38:45 – As a leader you are developing people
40:00 – There's always a way to handle stress & difficult conversations
40:25 – When you're in charge you often neglect yourself
42:00 – 2-minute check-ins
42:45 – You can choose to be toxic or positive
44:00 – Shifting from how we were, to how we will be
44:45 – Building relational trust
45:20 – Equipping our feelings with vocabulary
46:30 – Joanne's childhood & professional journey
53:00 – Children's summer camps
54:00 – Asking for permission to help & allowing time
59:00 – Episode reflections
01:00:00 – Enquire about working with Joanne

For more episodes and articles visit The Voice of Early Childhood website: https://www.thevoiceofearlychildhood.com