Leader-teacher relationships in early childhood education : insights from LMX framework
Paschali, Asimina (2025)
2025
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2025052717091
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2025052717091
Tiivistelmä
Background and Research Topic: Working in kindergartens across Greece, Switzerland, and the Czech Republic revealed how unclear support and con-flicting messages about trust contributed to high turnover. In contrast, working in a school with a leader who practiced open communication, genuine care, and an open-door policy showed how trust-based leadership can make teach-ers feel heard, valued, and empowered. These experiences inspired this re-search to explore how strong, trust-driven connections between teachers and leaders foster supportive work environments, alleviate daily challenges, and enhance both teacher well-being and overall school effectiveness.
Purpose: The research investigates how leader–teacher relationships ground-ed in Leader–Member Exchange (LMX) theory and collaborative leadership models foster supportive work environments, promote teacher well-being, and improve staff retention in early childhood education (ECE).
Sources of Information and Method: A desk-based literature review was conducted using peer-reviewed studies from major academic databases. The key concepts of collaborative leadership and the LMX guided the analysis. These were examined with a focus on trust-based relationships, teacher well-being, and leadership in ECE to address three guiding research questions.
Discussion: The discussion addresses the research questions by examining the key concepts of collaborative leadership and the LMX framework. It ex-plores how trust is built and sustained through everyday interactions between leaders and teachers, and how this affects teacher turnover. Based on these insights, the study offers practical strategies—guided by both LMX and collabo-rative leadership—that ECE leaders can use to create supportive and collabo-rative ECE environments.
Conclusions: The findings suggest that trust-based, collaborative leadership supports thriving work environments in ECE. Future research could examine how teamwork structures, LMX practices, motivational profiles, and diverse educational settings influence trust and collaboration in practice.
Purpose: The research investigates how leader–teacher relationships ground-ed in Leader–Member Exchange (LMX) theory and collaborative leadership models foster supportive work environments, promote teacher well-being, and improve staff retention in early childhood education (ECE).
Sources of Information and Method: A desk-based literature review was conducted using peer-reviewed studies from major academic databases. The key concepts of collaborative leadership and the LMX guided the analysis. These were examined with a focus on trust-based relationships, teacher well-being, and leadership in ECE to address three guiding research questions.
Discussion: The discussion addresses the research questions by examining the key concepts of collaborative leadership and the LMX framework. It ex-plores how trust is built and sustained through everyday interactions between leaders and teachers, and how this affects teacher turnover. Based on these insights, the study offers practical strategies—guided by both LMX and collabo-rative leadership—that ECE leaders can use to create supportive and collabo-rative ECE environments.
Conclusions: The findings suggest that trust-based, collaborative leadership supports thriving work environments in ECE. Future research could examine how teamwork structures, LMX practices, motivational profiles, and diverse educational settings influence trust and collaboration in practice.