Leadership is a sociocultural construct underpinned by a society's beliefs and values ​​(Waniganayake, Cheeseman, Fenech, Hadley, & Shepherd, 2012). Early childhood leadership has shifted the focus from a designated leader to a more collective approach: distributed leadership, which is not about delegation. As Cheeseman (2012) states, in early childhood settings, the focus is often on administrative and managerial leadership (Waniganayake et al., 2012); however it is important to have a designated leader in the areas of curriculum development and implementation and pedagogy – being the educational leader as a requirement of the National Quality Framework – and at the same time seeing educational leadership as a shared or distributed responsibility. The role of the educational leader is to “guide other educators in their planning and reflection” (ACECQA, 2013 cited in Cheeseman, 2012), as well as to guide and shape the application of educational theory into practice. With this in mind, it is important to remember that this vital role will vary depending on the context of an environment, but as an educational leader he must be socially as well as educationally responsible (Duignan, 2006). An ideal educational leader would be someone with qualifications in early childhood education (Brown et al., 2012; Cheeseman, 2012; ACECQA, 2013) with access to current curriculum research and in-depth knowledge of curriculum approaches and learning theories . and development. In this way, they are then able to communicate, inform, and share valuable information with other educators as they drive toward challenging yet highly achievable goals and expectations. An educational leader will need to consider the following list...... middle of document ...... national leadership: key challenges and ethical tensions. New York: Cambridge University Press. Rodd, J. (2006). Leadership in early childhood: The path to professionalism. Crows Nest NSW: Allen and Unwin. Sinclair, A. (2007). Leadership for the disillusioned: Moving beyond myths and heroes to liberating leadership. Crows Nest NSW: Allen and Unwin.Siraj-Blatchford, I. & Manni, I. (2006). Effective leadership in the early years sector: the ELEYS study. London: Institute of Education, University of London. Waniganayake, M., Cheeseman, S., Fenech, M., Hadley, F., & Shepherd, W. (2012). Leadership: Contexts and complexity in early childhood education. South Melbourne: Oxford University Press.