The early years and family support workforce supplies the backbone for achieving the ambition to give every child the Best Start in Life. Yet this workforce is operating under unprecedented pressure: rising need, persistent recruitment challenges, complex multi‑agency expectations, and a level of public scrutiny that could better reward or support the realities of day-to-day delivery.In these conditions, leadership is not simply a management function. It is an act of stewardship, culture‑building, and collective purpose.

If the Best Start in Life strategy asks local authorities to lead systems, then it also implicitly asks us to lead and inspire the workforce at the heart of those systems.And that needs to be front-and-centre right from the start.

Previously, I explored the lean towards local authorities being place‑based leaders rather than direct deliverers. The same applies to how LAs lead the workforce. Leadership today is less about issuing instructions and more about creating the conditions in which people can be inspired and allowed do their best and most impactful work.I am reminded of when the Children Act (2004) set out significant ambitions, following the learning expertly curated by Laming’s Inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbie.On behalf of DfE, I would visit several LAs to check-in, support and challenge their workforce reform to release the Act’s requirements. During the first few meetings it became clear LA teams were investing all their time on restructures, redrawing flowcharts, and revisiting job titles.None of them had started any work with the front-line workforce in terms of communication, motivation, inspiration, change management, or inclusion in deciding what would be the best local solutions.So, at the start of meetings after that, I would ask LAs to describe the latter before we got to the former.The pennies dropped quickly, and local attention swiftly turned to ensuring their actions were much more about people than paper first.

True leadership means: aligning efforts across all services so workers feel part of one ecosystem, and not in a forgotten corner.It means clarifying shared outcomes so people understand why their work matters and how it connects to others’ roles.And it means ensuring systems join up, so frontline staff spend more time supporting families and less time mourning what has passed, or battling against, navigating, or reinforcing organisational boundaries.

When workforce leadership is done well, practitioners feel valued, trusted, and connected, even when resources are stretched.In fact, good leadership here means the limitation of resource is much more likely to become a non-issue.That’s naturally and obviously very useful these days.

One of the most significant challenges is the early years and family support workforce is not a single entity. It spans sectors, disciplines, and employers. Many are not directly employed by the local authority, yet their contribution is essential to delivering local plans.

This requires a mindset shift: from leading people you manage to leading people you influence.And let me tell you, that rule applies internally across LAs.All managers in the public sector need to break the unhelpful thought you can only have leverage and influence over your own teams, and cannot trespass into the domain of others.That is lesson one.

Local authorities must therefore serve as: standard‑setters – shaping shared values, expectations, and core principles, connectors – bringing professionals together to learn, collaborate, and reflect; facilitators – enabling others to lead within the LA and other organisations; and advocates – amplifying the workforce’s voice and championing its needs to national government.

In these ways, leadership becomes relational, not hierarchical. Influence becomes distributed, not owned.So how do we best create a culture of inspiration?It isn’t about restructured teams, important new job titles, grand speeches or motivational slogans. For this workforce, inspiration is rooted in four key areas:

1. Shared purpose.Frontline workers repeatedly tell me they draw energy from knowing the difference they make. Leaders must connect daily tasks to the bigger picture, reminding people of the impact of early help, the lifelong benefits of early education, and the value of prevention.Collect, share, and tell the stories of impact and outcomes.
2. Psychological safety.In multi‑agency environments, people must feel safe to express concerns, challenge assumptions, and test new ways of working. Inspirational leadership cultivates environments where honesty and challenge is permissible and welcomed, not feared or penalised.
3. Opportunities to grow.Professional development cannot be a luxury. Joint training, cross‑sector learning, and reflective supervision are not just workforce perks, they are essential components of system quality and relational achievement.
4. Recognising the realities of the job.Inspiration must be grounded in authenticity. Leaders who acknowledge workload pressures, emotional labour, and complexity, while providing practical support, earn trust far more than those who simply demand resilience.

When it comes to data, insight, and workforce, The Best Start in Life strategy places new emphasis on data and evaluation. But data should not be used to monitor the workforce; it should be used to equip, enable and celebrate it.This means sharing local intelligence so practitioners understand the patterns and needs within their communities. It means using data collaboratively to co‑design solutions, rather than imposing targets from above.It includes encouraging teams to identify what works, what doesn’t, and what needs to change, drawing upon evidence and experience in equal measure.This is because, workforces feel inspired when they can see problems clearly and are trusted to help shape the response.I shall write about that later in this series.

To fulfil the ambitions of Best Start in Life, all this must demonstrably help the workforce to navigate rapid change with clarity (not confusion) and confidence (not fear). That means all the workforce, such as supporting childminders and smaller roles who risk being overlooked in fast‑moving policy contexts.It helps to spread effective practice across local areas rather than reinventing solutions.

The best leaders I meet share two traits: humility and hope.Humility, because no single leader, organisation, or profession has the full solution.Hope, because the workforce deserves leaders who believe that change is possible, even when the challenges feel daunting, or there are many faults and flaws, or people say “it didn’t work last time – so it won’t work this time”.

Leadership is not an add‑on. It is the work.It is to create space for professionals to act with confidence, compassion, and creativity. And it is to recognise that the workforce itself is the engine of the Best Start in Life strategy, not a footnote to it.If we want stronger systems, better services, and improved outcomes, we must invest not only in structures and governance, but in the people who make everything happen.