Everything Early Childhood

In this deeply personal episode of Everything Early Childhood, host Leeza Browne shares a conversation she almost talked herself out of recording. As a coach, mentor and leader in the Early Childhood sector, Leeza admits she questioned whether sharing the fear, doubt and messy parts of business might somehow take away from her credibility. But then she realised she was doing exactly what she sees...

Mud, Magic & the Mama Tree: Reimagining Childhood Through Nature with Amelia What happens when we slow down enough to truly see childhood? In this week's episode, Leeza travels north of Sydney to experience Mama Tree Farm firsthand before sitting down with founder, educator and mother, Amelia, to explore the story behind this extraordinary community. Together, they unpack Amelia's journey from...

AI in Early Childhood: Tool, Threat or Turning Point? Artificial Intelligence is everywhere. Some people are excited by it. Some are overwhelmed by it. Some are using it every day, while others are doing everything they can to avoid it. But regardless of where you sit, AI is already changing the way we work, communicate, access information and make decisions. In this episode of Everything Early Ch...

🎙️ Everything Early Childhood Podcast The Belonging Conversation We're Not Actually Having ### Why Team Building Isn't the Same as Building Community Part 4 of our series: **The Conversations We're All Having... But Not Properly Unpacking.** --- How do we bring our teams together? How do we get everyone on the same page? How do we create a shared vision? How do we build a culture people actually w...

EPISODE TITLE The Conversation That Started It All: Why Don’t People Want to Show Up to Work Anymore? EPISODE SHOW NOTES This week’s episode of the Everything Early Childhood Podcast is unlike any episode I’ve recorded before. No polished script. No “5 tips.” No perfectly packaged answers. Just me, a whiteboard and one question I genuinely cannot stop thinking about: Why don’t people want to show...

When Survival Mode Becomes Team Culture What happens when “hard” stops being a season… and becomes the identity of the profession? In this deeply honest and reflective episode, Leeza explores the emotional weight many educators, leaders and owners are carrying right now — and the uncomfortable truth that exhaustion has become normalised in early childhood. This is not an episode about pretending e...

Something has shifted in early childhood… and everyone can feel it. In this deeply honest and confronting episode, Leeza Browne unpacks the growing exhaustion, pressure and uncertainty being felt across the early childhood profession right now. From workforce shortages, rising operational costs and child safety reform, to emotionally overwhelmed teams, shifting family expectations and the increasi...

Culture Is More Than a Checklist with Jessica Staines In this week’s episode of the Everything Early Childhood Podcast, I sit down with the incredible Jessica Staines from Koori Curriculum for a deeply important conversation about what it really means to embed Aboriginal perspectives meaningfully in early childhood. This isn’t a conversation about ticking boxes, adding a few cultural experiences d...

PODCAST SHOW NOTES Q&A: You Don’t Need More Time… You Need a Different Way of Leading This month’s Q&A episode is built completely from your questions — real challenges coming from the floor, your teams, and your leadership right now. Firstly, thank you to everyone who took the time to submit a question. I know how busy you are, and these episodes are designed to support you in real time —...

“I feel like I’m holding everything together… and I don’t know how much longer I can keep doing it.”   In this month’s Director File, Leeza shares a powerful and deeply relatable letter from a director who is caught in the cycle of supporting everyone else… while slowly burning out themselves.   This episode explores:   • The blurred lines between connection and over-supporting your...

What does a Centre Director actually do all day?   This episode answers that question… honestly.   In this powerful and deeply relatable episode, Leeza walks you through the real, unfiltered reality of a director’s day, from the 5am phone calls, to compliance pressures, to emotional leadership, to the invisible load that is carried every single day.   This episode is for:   • D...

You say you’re overwhelmed. You say you’re burnt out. You say you can’t keep going like this…   But when the opportunity comes to do something different… You stay in the fire.   In this bold and honest solo episode, Leeza challenges one of the biggest patterns she is seeing across early childhood leadership right now, directors and owners who are stuck in reactive cycles, constantly putt...

Director Files 🎙 Alright… this month’s Director File had me laughing out loud when I read it. Not because it’s funny, but because I know so many directors dealing with this right now. A director wrote in about something she’s calling educator cancel culture. An educator walked into the office and said: “I refuse to work with her.” When the director suggested they talk through the issue, the respon...

Directors & Approved Providers… these questions might feel familiar. Each month inside our Everything Early Childhood community, I ask one simple question: “What leadership situation is sitting in the back of your mind right now?” And the responses are always incredibly honest. This month we unpack questions around: • recruitment and second-guessing decisions • educators doing the bare minimum...

Early childhood leadership comes with significant responsibility, especially when laws and regulations change. In this episode, we unpack the latest updates to early childhood legislation and what they mean for leaders, educators, and approved providers. Regulatory change can feel overwhelming, but strong leadership means staying informed, responsive, and focused on what matters most: children’s s...

Head vs Heart: Why Leaders Struggle to Make Decisions Is there a decision sitting quietly in the background of your mind right now? In this episode, Leeza unpacks why leaders don’t actually struggle with decisions because they’re unclear, they struggle because they’re uncomfortable. Through the lens of early childhood leadership, we explore: Cognitive dissonance (when your head and heart disagree)...

There are questions most child care directors carry quietly. Not because they don’t care. Not because they aren’t capable. But because leadership can be lonely — and saying these things out loud can feel risky. In this episode, I’m naming the five questions directors are asking (but rarely say out loud) and unpacking why these questions keep coming up, especially in seasons of pressure, respo...

There’s a quiet shift that happens when a child care director stops carrying everything alone. Not overnight. Not dramatically. But deeply. In this episode, I’m talking about what actually changes when you stop being the one who holds it all together. The internal shift. The emotional relief. The way leadership starts to feel different in your body. We explore: Why directors end up carrying everyt...

Why confident early childhood directors still second-guess themselves Show Notes One of the most common things I hear from directors; even very capable, experienced ones, is this: “Why do I still doubt myself?” Not loudly. Quietly. Often at the end of a long day. In this episode, we unpack why self-doubt shows up so often in leadership, and why it isn’t a sign that something is wrong with you. Man...

There’s a part of early childhood leadership that rarely gets named. It’s not the paperwork. It’s not the compliance. And it’s not even the long days. It’s the invisible load. The mental tracking. The emotional holding. The constant decision-making. The responsibility that follows you home, into the shower, and into the quiet moments no one else sees. In this episode, I’m naming something I’ve see...

Welcome back to the Everything Early Childhood podcast. This episode is a little different. After a longer pause than planned, I wanted to return gently not with pressure, polish, or pretending everything is fine but with honesty. In this Episode, I share: Why I’ve been quiet over the past couple of months What’s been happening personally behind the scenes Why so many directors and leaders are alr...

Episode 6: “I Don’t Want Them to Hate Me – Leading With Care and Accountability” Have you ever put off a tough conversation because you didn’t want to hurt someone’s feelings—or worse, have them stop liking you? You’re not alone. In this episode, Leeza Browne unpacks one of the most confronting tensions every leader faces: how to lead with heart without losing accountability. Drawing from her upco...

Lesson 5: Letting Go of the Dream — and Becoming Who You’re Meant to Be After a big week attending the ECE Connect event, Leeza reflects on the emotions running through the early childhood profession right now — from funding divides and partial A&R processes to the growing feeling that we all need a more unified voice across preschool, long day care, OOSH, and family day care. In this heartfel...

Ever wonder why it feels so hard to ask for help — even when you know you need it? In this raw and real episode, Leeza gets honest about control, ego, and why so many early-childhood directors resist accepting support. She shares the psychology behind our need to “do it all,” the illusion of control that keeps us stuck, and her own stories, including the social-media post that took hours to make (...

When everything falls apart — that’s when the real leadership begins. I’ll never forget the day I sat in my car outside the centre, completely numb, thinking: “If I stop, everything stops.” That moment changed everything. It taught me that my business wasn’t a reflection of me — it was a reflection of the strength of my systems. This week on the Everything Early Childhood podcast, I’m sharing: 🧱...