According to previous research, the leadership in early childhood education (ECE) needs to be strengthened and improved by building sustainable structures. The aim of the current research was to investigate how ECE professionals evaluate its leadership. The context of the study was a development project called Sustainable leadership in ECE conducted in two municipalities in Finland. The purpose of the project was to investigate and create a sustainable structure for ECE leadership with the aim of strengthening pedagogical leadership. The participants were 110 ECE professionals, comprising experts, directors, teachers, and nurses. The research was based on responses to an electronic questionnaire about the quality of ECE leadership built around six themes: leadership of the organisation, Human resource management, Structure of the organisation, Pedagogical leadership, Knowledge management and work well-being, and Leadership of self. The results indicate that only in the pedagogical leadership theme were there statistically significant differences between the groups of professionals. Having high professional status and being highly qualified seem to enhance the ability of professionals to reflect critically on pedagogical leadership and to have more demanding attitudes about the quality of pedagogical leadership.

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As an Emerita Professor based on my long academic carrier as a researcher and trainer, I affirm the importance of leadership in Early Childhood Education (ECE) for daily work practice in ECE settings. Likewise, the demand for ECE leadership research and training has been growing over the past few decades and today, there is more clarity about the directions we need to take into the future. Both academic researchers and EC leaders on all levels of ECE governance have demonstrated this growing importance of EC leadership work. But still, leadership research has taken only its first steps.The demand for increasing research-based knowledge on EC leadership is huge as being experienced by leadership actors and specialists on the ECE field including the academic and professional organizations. This book offers research-based knowledge on EC leadership at an international level. The authors are international specialists on leadership in ECE. Their up-to-date articles challenge the readers to dialogue with EC leadership practice and renew their understandings, knowledge and skills based on contemporary leadership research.My preliminary experience on EC leadership research goes back to 1990s. It was a period of slow beginning on research concerning leadership issues in ECE. This research and its status was not at all highly considered among academic researchers within the ECE field. In 1990s I was leading the International Leadership Project (ILP) where ECE researchers from Australia, Britain, USA, Russia and Finland were involved in exploring EC leadership within a cultural context. My co-operation and friendship with editors of this book Doctor Jillian Rodd and Professor Manjula Waniganayake began during ILP established in 1997. The rapid growth and new challenges in ECE as well as the emergence of new EC leadership researchers such as Doctor Johanna Heikka and Professor Petra Strehmel, today in 2018, EC leadership is not questioned any more. Some twenty years on, in most academic contexts in ECE today, leadership knowledge and understanding is highly appreciated. Doctor Jillian Rodd is recognized globally as an international pioneer on EC leadership. Doctor Rodd wrote her first leadership book in 1994 "Leadership in Early Childhood. The Pathway to Professionalism". She has continued to be an active writer and trainer mentoring both novice and experienced leadership researchers. I dare to say that Doctor Rodd is one of the most well-known, read and quoted ECE leadership researchers among ECE students in the whole world. She has inspired many EC leadership researchers in