Early Education Leadership

01/09/2026

I don't usually share something this personal, but this one felt important to put into words.

Some fifteen years or so, I didn't choose early childhood. It chose me!

I'd already spent years in leadership roles across other sectors, in the UK and Australia. Then I became a mum. My children started preschool, and that's genuinely how I found this sector, not a career plan, through a conversation.

My business back then was called Curiosity Inspired, broad and sector agnostic, built around leadership. A group of early childhood directors found it and asked for more. Everything on offer to them was delivered through the child lens; few programs offered for leaders. So I renamed the business Early Education Leadership, purely so they could find me. For over a decade, that was my world.

Here's something I believe firmly: early childhood is often an early adopter. Ten years ago, self regulation for leaders wasn't mainstream language. Those leaders were willing to sit with their own patterns first, long before the rest of the leadership world caught up. What they wanted wasn't only a program, it was a community, since leadership here can be isolating, and being surrounded by others doing the same inner work mattered as much as the work itself.

The work kept evolving because they did. Leading From Behind became one of the sector's first online leadership programs, then grew into the Online Conscious Leadership Program: three months, then six weeks, as time grew scarcer for clients. Somewhere in there I trained as a certified Conversational Intelligence coach and started using the methodology. Through COVID, I moved to almost entirely one on one coaching, alongside leaders pivoting just as hard.

Somewhere in that growth, I noticed something. Every struggle I coached leaders through, burnout, isolation, the dread of a hard conversation, a nervous system worn out from holding a team together, was never really about early childhood. It was about leadership, full stop.

The learning has run both ways, as I've grown, so have my clients.

Here's the part I've sat with longer than I'd like to admit: guilt. Early childhood took a chance on me when few were doing this work. Stepping back has felt, some days, like walking away from the people who backed me first.

But that's not quite what's happening. My children are grown now, and that has brought space to return to the broader identity I started with. I'm not leaving early childhood. I'll keep working within it, just not solely.

My hope is that this isn't a departure, but an exchange: what I learn coaching leaders in other industries I'll bring back into early childhood, the way this sector has shaped how I lead.

So I'm bringing the work forward under one name, Sarah Moore Leadership, for any leader ready to do the inner work my earliest clients were brave enough to do first.

If you want to make sure you don't miss posts about my future offerings, tap "Follow" on this page and then choose "See First" under Following, so it shows up in your feel reliably.

28/08/2026

Every team has communication agreements, whether they are spoken clearly or carried as assumptions.

They show up in everyday moments.

How do we ask questions?

How do we raise concerns or offer a different perspective?

How do we listen when pressure is rising?

How do we repair and reconnect when communication becomes strained?

During times of stress, change, or uncertainty, people can move towards familiar patterns such as withdrawing, reacting quickly, avoiding difficult conversations, or making assumptions.

Bringing these patterns into the conversation gives teams an opportunity to choose how they want to communicate and work together.

This is the purpose of my Team Communication Agreements Workshop.

Through guided reflection, practical activities, and honest conversation, teams co-create shared expectations for how they speak, listen, contribute, and navigate challenges together.

This whole day interactive workshop brings together neuroscience-informed communication, emotional intelligence, relational practice, and practical tools that teams can use immediately.

A 60-minute implementation session supports the team to review progress, adapt the agreements, and strengthen follow-through.

Because workplace culture is shaped through everyday conversations, and clear communication creates stronger teams.

If your organisation is looking to strengthen trust, accountability, connection, and collaboration, drop me a DM and let's have a conversation.

27/08/2026

Wise words indeed!

We’re living at a time when life is like a split screen; it’s as though we’re living in two parallel universes. On one hand, an entire world order around us is crumbling; on the other, a new and more beautiful world is struggling to be born.

I haven’t been posting on our political situation for the last few weeks, because there’s little I can tell you that isn’t blaring at you from other sources. You and I both know what’s happening, and I continue to comment on all that on my Substack. But it’s important to clear our palette sometimes too, and remind ourselves of the world that’s struggling to be born.

The two are deeply connected. It’s only in living more deeply that we can influence the world more widely. Showing up for our relationships more fully - in particular, being there for the children just coming into and growing up in this world - is a sacred responsibility. Yesterday I received two texts from friends with pictures of their newborn babies, and throughout each day I eagerly await pictures from my daughter and son-in-law of my own grandchildren. In the spiritual search for the experience of Awe and Wonder, I don’t think there’s a greater opportunity that simply gazing at the miracle of childhood.

Make no mistake about it, if we’re to create a new and more beautiful world then children will be far more central to it. To those who are family members, teachers, or caretakers of little ones, let’s never forget that nothing, and I mean nothing, is a more important contribution to the healing of the world. Someone asked me last night what I had done that was important during the day. I responded, “I started teaching my one-year old granddaughter how to blow a kiss.” He didn’t realize this, but I meant it…

27/08/2026

This feels like such a special moment, and I wanted to share it here with the people who have been part of this journey.

I am thrilled that Self-Regulation for Leaders, the 60-minute webinar I designed and delivered in partnership with TAFE NSW, is now available to access free through the TAFE NSW ECEC Professional Learning Program.

Self-regulation has been close to my heart and central to my work for many years. Long before this conversation began receiving wider recognition, many of you saw its value and were willing to explore it with me.

You invited me into your services, teams, leadership programs and coaching conversations. You asked thoughtful questions, shared honest reflections, tried the practices and carried the learning into your work with others.

Your openness, curiosity and feedback have shaped the way I understand, develop and teach this work. Every conversation has strengthened my belief that self-regulation is an essential part of our human capacity and influences how we communicate, lead, build trust and create relationships.

To all the early adopters who recognised the importance of this work and placed your trust in me, thank you. You helped this work grow and reach more people than I could have imagined when I began.

I am also incredibly grateful to the team at TAFE NSW who supported me throughout the design and delivery, and who shared my commitment to making this learning more widely accessible across the early childhood sector.

You can access the webinar here: https://www.tafensw.edu.au/programs/ecec-professional-learning-program

Select Register or Log in, open the Webinars tile and choose Self-Regulation for Leaders.

I hope you feel some of the pride and possibility that I feel today.

This is a lovely opportunity to pause, reflect and recognise how far this conversation has travelled, and the many people who have helped carry it forward.

Thank you for being part of it!

Access free* online training with TAFE NSW’s ECEC program. Build leadership skills and enhance expertise as an early childhood educator. * Eligibility criteria apply.

17/08/2026

FREE WEBINAR THIS THURSDAY | Come and join us!

Early childhood leadership has always involved uncertainty. Policy changes. Staffing pressures. Sector shifts. Regulatory demands. Families in crisis. Teams stretched beyond their capacity.

But there is a particular kind of uncertainty that is harder to navigate than the rest. The kind where you do not know what is coming, when it will resolve, or what the right answer is. The kind where your team is looking to you for steadiness and you are not sure you have any to spare.

This is where leadership gets hard. And this is where the neuroscience of how we respond to uncertainty becomes genuinely useful.

When we feel uncertain, the brain's threat response activates. Cortisol rises. Our window of tolerance narrows. The capacity for nuanced thinking, relational attunement, and strategic clarity all reduce. And we begin leading from the part of the brain designed for survival rather than the part designed for wisdom.

The leaders who navigate uncertainty well are not the ones who have more answers. They are the ones who have learned to stay regulated enough to keep thinking clearly, stay present enough to keep their teams connected, and stay grounded enough to make decisions without certainty.

That is a learnable practice. And that is what this session is about.

In this free one-hour masterclass, grounded in slow pedagogy, relational leadership, and Conversational Intelligence® principles, I'll share what the research tells us about leading through uncertainty and give you practical tools to help you show up with greater calm, clarity, and connection, even when things feel unstable.

In this masterclass we'll cover:
* What uncertainty does to the brain and nervous system and
why it affects your leadership before you even notice it
* Why slowing down is not a weakness under pressure but a
neurological strategy for better decisions
* How your presence as a leader directly shapes how your team
experiences uncertainty
* Practical approaches for staying regulated, connected, and
purposeful when you don't have all the answers
* How to create stability for your team without pretending the
uncertainty isn't real

This session is for you if you are:

An educational leader, room leader, director, or centre manager
A leader navigating a period of change, pressure, or instability in your service or someone who wants to lead with more steadiness and less reactivity when things feel uncertain.

This is a free, live, interactive session. Bring your questions.

"Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence, and making sure that impact lasts in your absence." - Sheryl Sandberg

To register follow the link here: https://www.earlyeducationleadership.com/event-details/leading-through-uncertainty

I look forward to seeing you there.

17/08/2026

The Connections Forum | Connection, reflection and honest leadership conversations

Where do early childhood leaders go when they are the person everyone else comes to?

Directors and leaders across the sector are navigating funding changes, workforce pressures, questions about service viability, complex team dynamics and the daily responsibility of supporting educators, children and families.

They also need spaces where they can think, reflect and speak honestly with people who understand the realities of the role.

This is why The Connections Forum exists.

The forum brings together early childhood leaders I have worked with over many years. It provides an emotionally safe conversational space where they can reconnect with each other, revisit the conscious leadership principles I teach and apply them to what is happening in their services right now.

This month, we revisited Managing Your Emotions and explored how leaders can prepare themselves before situations and conversations that may bring up strong emotions.

Our conversation moved through some important questions:

* What is within my control?
* How might this information land for the other person?
* What story am I creating when I do not have all the information?
* How can I remain curious without taking responsibility for
another person’s emotions?

These leaders already know this work, and they also understand that conscious leadership is a continual practice. We return to it because every new challenge, team and season asks something different of us.

At the end of the session, one leader shared that she felt reconnected and less overwhelmed.

That reflection captured why these spaces matter. Leadership becomes more sustainable when people have trusted relationships, shared language and opportunities to think alongside others who truly understand the work.

10/08/2026

This article has been stirring within me for some time. It has grown from conversations I’ve been having with early childhood directors across the sector, many of whom are experiencing a tension they can feel deeply, yet are finding difficult to articulate.

Many are describing an uncomfortable tension that they can feel, yet are finding difficult to articulate. They remain deeply committed to child safety, strong accountability and creating cultures where educators feel able to speak openly, ask questions, reflect and learn.

At the same time, something about the way the broader conversation is unfolding feels at odds with the relational cultures they are working so hard to create.

Those conversations led me back to the work I did whilst training to become a Conversational Intelligence Coach with the great, Judith E. Glaser and to a question I think is worth exploring: If everything happens through conversations, what are our current conversations creating?

This article is my attempt to put some language around that tension and invite a broader conversation across our sector.

To get to the next level of greatness depends on the quality of the culture, which depends on the quality of the relationships, which depends on the quality of the conversations. Everything happens through conversations.

21/07/2026

One of the most powerful messages I took away from Jefferson Fisher’s conversation wasn’t about finding the perfect words.

It was about what happens before we speak.

His advice was simple:

Breathe.
Think.
Speak.

It sounds almost too simple, yet in the middle of a difficult conversation, it can change everything.

That single breath creates space.

Space to notice what is happening within us.

Space to choose our words rather than allowing pressure to choose them for us.

Space to become curious instead of defensive.

This is something I have been teaching and practising with early childhood leaders for many years.

Whether it is a conversation with an educator, a family member, a colleague or another leader, the quality of what comes next is often shaped by the few seconds before we begin speaking.

Here is a practical approach you can try today:

🌿 Breathe – Take one slow breath. Feel your feet on the floor or notice the chair supporting you.

🌿 Notice – Ask yourself, “How am I arriving in this conversation?” There is no judgement, simply awareness.

🌿 Choose – Consider what outcome you want to create. Do you want to be right, or do you want to build understanding, trust and a way forward together?

🌿 Speak – Begin with curiosity. Questions such as “Help me understand your perspective” or “Tell me more about what you’re seeing” create space for thinking together.

In leadership, our words matter.

The state we bring into the conversation matters just as much.

A single breath will not solve every challenge, yet it can be the difference between reacting to pressure and responding with intention.

Sometimes the most influential leadership practice takes less than ten seconds.

21/07/2026

There are some evenings that stay with you long after you walk out the door.

Last night, I had the pleasure of seeing Fisher at the Sydney Opera House, thanks to the most generous thank-you gift from Emma Cullen. Emma was sadly unable to join us, but her thoughtful gift created such a memorable evening and was deeply appreciated.

Jefferson was every bit as insightful, practical and entertaining as I had hoped. His fast wit, memorable metaphors and ability to turn everyday conversations into powerful learning moments made for an incredible evening.

Two takeaways have stayed with me.

When someone responds to your hurt with:

“I’m sorry you feel that way.”

Jefferson suggested a response that brings the conversation back to accountability:

“You don’t have to apologise for the way I feel, but I would appreciate an apology for what you said.”

It is calm, respectful and clear. It keeps the focus on the words that created the impact rather than inviting debate about your feelings.

Another gem was how to respond when someone shares a perspective you disagree with:

“I’ve not thought about it like that.”

Such a simple sentence. It acknowledges the other person’s perspective without requiring agreement and allows the conversation to rest there.

As someone who spends so much of my work helping leaders build trust through communication, I loved seeing how small changes in language can completely shift the direction of a conversation.

Sharing dinner beforehand with my dear friend and work colleague on such a breathtaking Sydney night was the icing on the cake.

Some of the most valuable professional learning gives us language we can carry into the conversations we have the very next day.

Thank you, Jefferson, for an evening filled with wisdom, laughter and practical communication tools.

And thank you, Emma, for such a generous and thoughtful gift.