Pandemic-related challenges for team leadership in ECEC centres in Germany

This article investigates Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic. The focus is on ECEC leaders’ perceptions of team leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany. The purpose of the study is to increase understanding of the team-related challenges ECEC leaders have been confronted with, how they have been experienced and mastered. Therefore, two qualitative studies were designed (Hamburg, Leipzig). A total of 55 ECEC leaders from different federal states were surveyed in guideline-based qualitative interviews (Leipzig study: n = 20 ECEC leaders; Hamburg study: n = 35 ECEC leaders) and analysed with a qualitative content analysis. The results show how teamwork changed under the pandemic conditions and what challenges the leaders faced, including a lack of staff (due to e. g. quarantine, disease), structural separation of teams, lack of communication, additional tasks (political regulations), and missing collaboration with parents. The results indicate that not only ECEC leaders are required to organise team development activities on a regular basis or to reflect on the experiences of the pandemic within heterogeneous teams but also setting providers and sectoral policies are called upon to support ECEC centres in crisis according to their needs.