Despite the role pedagogical leadership plays in quality early childhood education and care services, limited research to date has explored the appointment and enactment of educational leaders in Australia. This qualitative study explored the role and influence of two educational leaders in a high-quality rated service. Findings revealed that these educational leaders’ exercising of distributed and transformational leadership enabled ongoing quality improvement. Appointing the ‘right’ person; a supportive, effective and cohesive team; the whole-of centre valuing of the educational leaders and their role; investment of resources; and professional autonomy, were identified as key enablers of quality education across the service. As the first study to investigate the educational leader role in an ‘excellent’-rated service in Australia, this study highlights that the effectiveness of an EL is dependent on the person in the EL role and the context in which they are working. Implications for policy and service providers are discussed.

尽管教学领导在优质幼儿教育和护理服务中发挥着作用，但迄今为止有限的研究探索了澳大利亚教育领导的任命和制定。这项定性研究探讨了两位教育领导者在高质量评级服务中的作用和影响。调查结果显示，这些教育领导者行使分布式和变革型领导力能够持续提高质量。任命“合适”的人；一个支持、有效和有凝聚力的团队；教育领导者的整体中心价值及其作用；资源投资；和专业自主权，被确定为整个服务质量教育的关键推动力。作为第一项调查澳大利亚“优秀”评级服务中教育领导者角色的研究，以及他们工作的环境。讨论了对政策和服务提供商的影响。