SECTOR INSIGHT

What Committees need to know before they appoint their next Centre Director

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Published: 7 August 2026 Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes

A Centre Director appointment is one of the biggest decisions a committee-managed early learning service will make. Most committees only get to make it once every few years. A corporate human resources team runs dozens of leadership hires a year and refines its process with every one. Most committees do not get that same repeated practice, simply because the appointment does not come around often. That is a structural gap in experience, not a reflection on the people making the decision. It does not lower the stakes of the appointment itself.

A poor Director hire costs a community-managed service just as much as it costs a national chain.

What follows is built to close that experience gap fast. It starts with why this particular appointment carries more weight than most committees realise.

Why this Centre Director appointment carries more weight than it looks

A Centre Director shapes almost everything else that happens at your service. Staff turnover, family confidence and compliance outcomes all move in the direction the Director takes them. So does enrolment, for better or worse. A 2024 study of leadership competencies in Western Australian services found a persistent gap. Leaders’ self-ratings did not match what they actually demonstrated in practice. That means the person who interviews best is not always the person who leads best (Cross, Dobson and Brooks, 2024). That gap between self-perception and demonstrated capability is exactly why the governance side of this appointment deserves as much scrutiny as the interview itself.

The governance point most committees miss

Your committee’s incorporated association, not the committee members personally, is very likely the actual Approved Provider. Individual committee members may instead be recognised as people with management or control of that entity, which is a distinct legal status. ACECQA’s guidance explains that the people who meet this definition depend on the entity’s structure and their actual authority, responsibility or influence. In practice, the Approved Provider retains responsibility when it nominates someone into the nominated supervisor role. It is easy to lose sight of this on committees that turn over every annual general meeting. Whenever your committee appoints someone who will become a nominated supervisor for the first time, the nomination should be treated as a live governance decision rather than inherited paperwork. That same instinct, to assume someone else already checked the fundamentals, is what lets a paper-strong candidate sail through an interview untested.

The QA7 trap: compliant on paper, untested in practice

Quality Area 7 groups governance and leadership together for a reason, but both standards describe your service, not your candidate personally. Standard 7.1 is about governance and management systems: the structures and clearly defined responsibilities that keep a service running well. Standard 7.2 is about leadership culture: continuous improvement, educational leadership and the ongoing professional development of the team. ACECQA’s current Quality Area 7 framework sets both out in full.

Used well, these are selection lenses rather than boxes a candidate personally ticks. Standard 7.1 asks whether someone can operate competently within your governance and management systems. Standard 7.2 asks whether they can build a leadership culture rather than simply administer one. Early childhood leadership research treats those as genuinely separate skills, not two sides of the same coin (Fu, 2023). A candidate can look strong on the systems side, holding the right qualifications and an unblemished compliance history, yet remain untested on culture-building. The table below shows what several reassuring signals genuinely fail to tell you.

Signal that feels reassuring	What it does not actually tell you
Current Working with Children Check, qualifications and a clean compliance history	Nothing about how they lead a room under pressure
Confident, fluent answers on ratios and regulations	Little about how they will respond when your Quality Improvement Plan self-assessment surfaces something inconvenient
A prior Director title on the résumé	Does not confirm whether they were formally nominated as a nominated supervisor, or simply held the title informally
Strong general interview performance	Does not reveal how they handle a committee that disagrees with them

Six things your committee can do before the first interview

You do not need a human resources department to run a properly structured process. A handful of practical steps, taken before you advertise, will lift every candidate conversation that follows.

Write down what good looks like for this specific service before you meet a single candidate.
Separate must-have compliance requirements, such as Working with Children Check status and qualifications, from merely preferred experience.
Decide your interview questions and scoring approach as a committee in advance, and use the same ones for every candidate.
Include at least one question that tests judgement under pressure, not just policy knowledge.
Check references by telephone rather than email, and ask how closely the referee actually observed the candidate leading a team.
Confirm how the Approved Provider will authorise the appointment and any nominated supervisor decision under your constitution, delegations and governance procedures.

That authorisation point matters more than it sounds. Committees turn over every year at annual general meeting time. A decision made without a clear approval pathway can unravel months later when a new member asks how it was authorised. Getting ahead of that question also helps you write a position description that attracts strong candidates. Understanding what experienced early childhood leaders actually want from a role is a good starting point before you finalise the advertisement. None of that matters, though, if the interview itself still comes down to instinct once candidates are in the room.

Why structured beats instinct

Employment interviews are more useful when committees are clear about what each question is intended to assess. A recent meta-analysis found that interviews can provide valid information about distinct areas of performance, including contextual performance: the interpersonal behaviour, judgement and adaptability that matter in leadership roles (Wingate, Bourdage and Steel, 2025). Using predetermined questions and a consistent scoring framework then gives the committee a more disciplined basis for comparing those qualities across candidates.

Finnish research into early childhood education and care leadership reached a related conclusion from a different angle. Centre leaders are still largely expected to grow into the role without systematic leadership education. That means the interview is often the only real filter a service has (Heikkinen et al., 2024). A structured process also makes it easier to catch the red flags worth watching for when hiring early childhood educators and leaders. Getting that filter wrong is what turns into real, lasting cost once a poor hire is already in the building.

The cost of getting this wrong

A poor hire at Director level does not just cost the vacancy fee and the time to re-advertise. It shows up in staff who leave because a new leader has unsettled the team. It shows up in families who lose confidence and move elsewhere. It shows up in a rating outcome that can take years to rebuild once it slips.

Australian research into leadership and retention in early childhood education looked at exactly this territory, and its finding cuts both ways. Informal mentoring was associated with stronger retention and a greater likelihood that emerging leaders remain in the profession (Downey et al., 2024). Read the other way around, a poorly supported appointment is a real risk. It can cost you the Director a second time, before you have recovered from the first departure. All of which is the case for spending a few extra hours on process now. If qualifications alone are not giving your committee enough to go on, our comparison of degree-qualified and diploma-qualified Centre Directors is worth reading before those criteria are locked in.

One interview question that reveals far more than a résumé

Tell us about a time you identified a practice or compliance concern that others were reluctant to acknowledge. What did you do, and what changed?

Score every candidate’s answer against the same three things.

How did they show sound judgment in their response to a situation?
Did they escalate appropriately, rather than act alone or stay silent?
Was there measurable follow-through: some actual change that resulted?

Asked and scored consistently, that one question becomes a genuine comparison across your shortlist rather than just a pleasant chat.

Key takeaway

Before you advertise, agree on the must-have criteria for this Centre Director appointment, the interview questions and how the final appointment will be authorised. Treat any new nominated supervisor decision as a governance duty, not paperwork. Use the same structured questions for every candidate, and check references by telephone rather than email. A properly run process protects your committee just as much as it protects the service.

If your committee would rather not run this process alone, our leadership recruitment specialists work with community-managed and committee-governed services regularly. Our six-month recruitment guarantee exists precisely because we know how much is riding on this Centre Director appointment. For a broader refresher on your committee’s duties beyond this specific hire, the Australian Institute of Company Directors’ Not-for-Profit Governance Principles are a solid general reference.

Related resources

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Frequently asked questions

These questions address the practical issues leadership teams should test when comparing temporary agency staffing with permanent employment.

If we are promoting internally rather than hiring externally, does the nominated supervisor nomination still need to be redone?

Not necessarily. If the person you are promoting is already a nominated supervisor for that specific service, stepping up to Centre Director does not automatically trigger a fresh nomination. A new nomination and written consent are required whenever the Approved Provider adds someone as a nominated supervisor for the first time. That applies whether it is an external hire or an existing staff member who has never held the role before. ACECQA sets out the current notification requirements and timeframes here

Can our committee delegate the entire hiring process to one person?

The committee can usually delegate much of the day-to-day recruitment process, including coordinating applications, interviews and reference checks. The final appointment and any nominated supervisor decision should still be authorised in accordance with the incorporated association’s constitution, delegations and governance procedures. The Approved Provider remains responsible for assessing the person’s suitability, even where parts of the process have been delegated.

How much weight should we give a candidate who has never worked in a community-managed or committee-governed service?

Treat it as a genuine question, not an automatic disqualifier. Directors from corporate or franchise backgrounds can adapt well. Probe how comfortable they are reporting to a volunteer board rather than a regional manager.

Should we prioritise qualifications or leadership experience when shortlisting?

Both matter, but they answer different questions. Qualifications and compliance history tell you whether a candidate can operate within the governance and management systems your service needs. That is the practical concern behind Standard 7.1. Demonstrated leadership tells you whether they can build the culture and continuous improvement expected under Standard 7.2. A strong shortlist usually needs evidence of both.

How many reference checks should we complete before making an offer?

Most committees complete at least two structured, verbal reference checks with people who directly supervised the candidate. A written or email-only reference rarely gives you enough to assess how the candidate actually led a team.

What happens if a committee member changes their mind about the appointment after the interview?

This is exactly why deciding your criteria and approval pathway in advance matters. A documented, agreed process gives the committee something to return to, rather than relitigating the decision informally afterwards

Is it reasonable to test how a candidate handles conflict during the interview?

Yes, and it is often one of the more revealing questions you can ask. A scenario-based question about a real leadership dilemma tends to surface judgement in a way a standard experience question does not.

How long should the recruitment process take from advertising to appointment?

This varies by service and location. Committees generally benefit from setting a realistic timeframe upfront, rather than waiting open-endedly for a perfect candidate. A Director vacancy left open too long can itself become a retention risk.

What should we do if no candidate meets all of our must-have criteria?

Revisit whether every item on your list is genuinely a must-have, or whether some are actually preferred. An overly long must-have list can rule out a candidate who would grow into the gaps quickly with the right support.