Welcome🖍️
As our Center Olympics come to a close, we’ve celebrated teamwork, determination, and a whole lot of fun. We’ve cheered each other on, recognized effort, and enjoyed the excitement of friendly competition. If you missed my newsletter on leading like an olympian, you can read it here.
But the spirit of the Olympic Games has always been about more than medals.
It’s about resilience after a fall.
It’s about growth after a setback.
It’s about who you become in the training, not just who you are on the podium.
And that may be the most important lesson for us as early childhood leaders. Because leadership, much like the Olympics, isn’t defined by flawless performance; it’s defined by perseverance, reflection, and the courage to keep showing up.
Gif by pudgypenguins on Giphy
The Gold Is in Growth📈
When athletes stand on the podium, we see a victory.
What we don’t see:
The early mornings
The setbacks
The routines that fell apart
The seasons they didn’t qualify
No one arrives at the podium undefeated.
No effective ECE leader would do that either.
Leadership is not a destination you arrive at fully formed; it is a skill you build, decision by decision, conversation by conversation, mistake by mistake.
The best leaders in early childhood education are not the ones who “have it all figured out.”
The ones who remain curious🔎
Who ask for feedback💬
Who reflect after hard days🪞
Who are willing to say, “I’m still learning.”🍏
In my Early Childhood Programs, “gold medal moments”🎖️look like:
A teacher gaining confidence🦁
A classroom that feels calmer than it did last month😌
A difficult conversation handled with professionalismt🗣️
A team member chose to stay because they feel supported💛
Those moments are not accidents. They are the result of leaders who continue to grow themselves while growing others.
Growth, not perfection, is the real gold!
The Space Between Winning and Losing⚖️
The truth is, leadership lives in the space between the win and the loss.
It lives in the reflection after the hard conversation
It lives in the follow-up after a mistake
It lives in the decision to try again tomorrow
In the Olympic Games, athletes train for years for a single moment on the podium.
In early childhood leadership, we don’t have one defining moment.
We have daily ones.
➡️Small choices
➡️Small corrections
➡️Small celebrations
➡️Small recoveries
And over time, those small moments shape culture.
They shape retention
They shape trust
They shape who we become as leaders
Losses Build Leadership Strength💪🏽
Athletes often say they learned more from their losses than their wins.
A missed landing exposes what needs refinement
A race lost by seconds reveals where endurance must grow
A season without qualifying builds hunger, discipline, and mental toughness
Loss is not the opposite of success. It is often the training ground for it.
Leadership works the same way. In early childhood programs, our “losses” might look like:
A hire that didn’t work out
A parent conversation that escalated
A teacher who resigned despite our efforts
A decision we later realized needed more thought
A moment we reacted instead of responding
Those experiences are uncomfortable, but they are also instructive.
They force us to:
🐌Slow down
📄Evaluate our systems
🗣️Strengthen communication
🏗️Build better onboarding
🎭Check our own emotional regulation
Strong leaders don’t avoid mistakes. They analyze them and learn from them. They don’t allow one difficult season to define them; they use it to sharpen their leadership skills.
In fact, some of the most respected leaders in our field are the ones who can say:
“That was hard.” “That didn’t go the way I hoped.” “Here’s what I learned.”
Because when leaders model reflection instead of defensiveness, they create a culture where growth feels safe, and safe teams stay.
Loss doesn’t weaken leadership.
Handled well, it strengthens it.
Let’s lead like Olympians: train daily, learn boldly, and rise stronger every time we fall.
The podium isn’t about perfection or applause. It’s about growth earned, lessons learned, resilience practiced, and teams strengthened. The best leaders celebrate progress, own mistakes, keep learning, and lift others along the way. That is the podium worth standing on.
As we step off our “Olympic field” and back into our daily leadership routines, consider accepting this challenge. Click here for Lessons from the podium Leadership Challenge!
Step up and lead your ECE program with the spirit of an Olympian! Embrace daily training, dive into learning with courage, and come back even stronger after every setback. Let's rise to the challenge together!
Till Next Time,
Jen Sprafka
Navigator of Leadership Development & Program Elevation
P.S. Every great leader needs reminders. I created this poem for you to post by your desk, proof that growth happens in the training, not just the wins. Click here to save “Lessons from the Podium.”
