How can nursery managers maintain quality, support their teams and keep the setting running effectively when staffing levels are under pressure?

For nursery employers, this is one of the hardest leadership challenges to get right.

When someone calls in sick, a vacancy remains unfilled or several members of the team are away at once, the pressure quickly moves upwards. Managers have to make decisions about deployment, ratios, breaks, rooms, activities, paperwork and priorities, often while trying to keep their own teams calm and motivated.

And the pressure is not going away.

The latest NFER Early Years Workforce in England report found that staff turnover among group based providers was 16% in 2024, twice the rate recorded in school based providers. The report also identifies staff retention as a significant challenge for the sector.

At the same time, the expansion of funded childcare has increased the workforce challenge. The Department for Education estimated that around 70,000 additional childcare places would be needed above the December 2023 baseline for autumn 2025.

For nursery owners and managers, that creates a difficult equation:

More demand + staffing pressure + fixed ratios + high expectations = greater leadership pressure.

The answer isn’t simply asking managers to work harder.

It is developing managers who know how to lead effectively when conditions aren’t ideal.

The real challenge isn’t being short staffed

Being short staffed is difficult, but the biggest leadership challenge often comes from what happens next.

When staffing levels change unexpectedly, managers need to make a series of decisions quickly.

• Who moves rooms?
• Which activities need to change?
• Where is additional support needed?
• What can be delayed?
• What absolutely cannot be compromised?
• How do you communicate the changes to the team?
• And how do you make sure that standards remain high without pushing already stretched staff towards burnout?

This is where leadership capability becomes critical.

The EYFS statutory framework places clear responsibilities on providers around children’s safety, supervision and staffing arrangements, while specific staff to child ratios apply depending on children’s ages and staff qualifications.

A manager therefore cannot simply “make do”. They have to prioritise intelligently.

Strong leadership is knowing what cannot be compromised

When pressure increases, inexperienced managers can sometimes treat every task as equally urgent.

That creates overload.

Confident leaders understand the difference between essential, important and can wait.

Safeguarding, children’s safety, appropriate supervision and statutory requirements are non negotiable.

Other activities may need to be simplified, moved or delegated.

The skill is not maintaining every element of the normal day exactly as planned.

It is maintaining the right standards in the right places, while making sensible adjustments elsewhere.

That requires judgement.

And judgement is one of the most important capabilities a nursery manager can develop.

The danger of trying to do everything yourself

One of the biggest traps for managers under pressure is becoming the solution to every problem.

A room is short staffed, so the manager steps in.

Someone has a difficult conversation with a colleague, so the manager takes over.

A team member doesn’t know what to do, so the manager makes the decision.

The problem is solved.

But the manager becomes increasingly overloaded.

And the team becomes increasingly dependent on them.

This creates a cycle:

Pressure → manager steps in → team relies on manager → manager becomes more stretched → pressure increases.

Good leadership breaks that cycle.

The aim isn’t for the manager to have all the answers.

It’s for the manager to build the capability of the people around them.

Micro coaching can make a big difference

When a nursery is busy, formal coaching sessions can feel impossible.

That’s where micro coaching can be particularly useful.

Instead of waiting for an appraisal or scheduled development session, managers can build short coaching conversations into everyday leadership.

For example:

“What do you think we should do here?”

“What options have you considered?”

“What would you do differently next time?”

“What support do you need from me?”

These conversations can take a couple of minutes.

But over time, they help team members become more confident problem solvers rather than simply waiting for the manager to tell them what to do.

That matters enormously when staffing pressure increases.

The manager isn’t just managing today’s problem.

They’re developing a team that is better equipped to handle tomorrow’s.

Keeping standards high without burning people out

There is another important balance for nursery employers.

You need to protect standards.

But you also need to protect your people.

The historic challenges facing the Early Years workforce demonstrate why this matters. NFER’s 2026 workforce report continues to identify recruitment and retention as significant sector challenges, while earlier research has linked high work demands and workload pressures with workforce instability.

When teams are repeatedly asked to operate under pressure without adequate support, the consequences can include fatigue, disengagement and eventually people leaving.

Leadership therefore needs to create sustainable performance, rather than short term heroics.

That means managers need to know when to:

• Simplify
• Delegate
• Prioritise
• Communicate
• Step in
• Step back

Those decisions are not always easy. But they are leadership decisions.

The importance of communication when pressure rises

When staffing is tight, uncertainty can spread quickly through a team.

People start asking:

“Who’s covering?”

“Are we going to get a break?”

“What’s happening with my room?”

“Why has this changed?”

Good communication can prevent pressure from becoming panic.

Managers should explain what is happening, why decisions have been made and what the priorities are.

They don’t need to have every answer.

But people need to know that someone is thinking about the situation.

This is one reason leadership confidence matters so much.

A manager who communicates calmly can create stability even when the circumstances themselves are far from stable.

Why operational knowledge matters too

Leading under pressure isn’t only about people.

It is also about understanding how the nursery operates as a business.

Managers increasingly need to understand the relationship between staffing, occupancy, ratios, budgets, resources and sustainability.

For example, a staffing decision isn’t made in isolation.

It can affect:

• Room capacity
• Occupancy
• Payroll
• Staff wellbeing
• Quality
• Parent experience
• Financial performance

This is why developing managers purely around people leadership isn’t always enough.

They need to understand the whole nursery.

Where Lead & Inspire fits in

This practical approach to leadership is at the heart of the Lead & Inspire Early Years Leadership Accelerator Programme.

The programme was developed around a simple principle:

Leadership development needs to reflect the reality of nursery life.

Delivered over 10 months, Lead & Inspire helps current and emerging managers develop the practical capabilities needed to lead confidently in real settings.

Rather than focusing solely on leadership theory, the programme helps participants apply their learning to situations they are actually likely to encounter.

That includes developing confidence around:

Leading people

Managers explore how to communicate effectively, support staff, give feedback and handle difficult conversations.

Making decisions

They develop greater confidence in prioritising, problem solving and making decisions when there isn’t an obvious answer.

Managing operational pressure

The programme looks beyond people management to the operational realities of running a nursery.

Understanding the business

Managers develop a better understanding of budgets, resources, occupancy and the commercial considerations that sit behind day to day nursery decisions.

Developing others

The focus isn’t simply on becoming a better manager.

It is about becoming a leader who can build capability within the team.

Leadership development shouldn’t end when the training does

Another important element of Lead & Inspire is the ongoing support network.

Leadership can feel isolating, particularly for managers working in smaller settings where they may be the most senior person on site.

Having access to other Early Years leaders creates an opportunity to share experiences, sense check decisions and continue learning beyond the structured programme.

That matters because leadership capability isn’t something you simply complete.

It develops through experience, reflection, challenge and continued support.

What does good leadership under pressure actually look like?

When staffing is tight, the strongest managers don’t necessarily look the busiest.

• They look composed.
• They know what matters most.
• They communicate clearly.
• They delegate rather than automatically taking everything on themselves.
• They protect their team’s wellbeing while maintaining standards.
• They make decisions based on evidence and priorities rather than panic.

And, importantly, they use pressure as an opportunity to develop the people around them.

That is what turns a manager into a leader.

A practical leadership question for employers

The next time your nursery experiences unexpected staffing pressure, consider what happens.

Does everything immediately escalate to the owner?

Does the manager become responsible for solving every problem?

Do staff know how to make decisions without waiting for permission?

Can your manager confidently prioritise what matters most?

And can they maintain standards without exhausting themselves or their team?

The answers can tell you a lot about the current strength of your leadership pipeline.

Because the real test of leadership isn’t what happens when everything is going well.

It’s what happens when it isn’t.

Develop stronger leadership in your nursery

If you want to understand how your current or future managers could benefit from more practical leadership development, the Lead & Inspire Early Years Leadership Accelerator Programme is designed to help.

Download the Lead & Inspire prospectus to explore the programme, how the 10 month development journey works and what it could bring to your setting.

Or, if you’d prefer to talk through your current leadership challenges, book a Leadership Consult with our team. We can explore where your managers are now, where you need them to be and what support could make the biggest difference.