WHEN VIEWING ON A TABLET OR MOBILE -- DOUBLE TAP TO ZOOM Foreword Growing up, my standard breakfast was cereal with milk, and Wheaties was prominent in the rotation of options. Its slogan, “Breakfast of Champions,” went hand-in-hand with the then-popular adage that “Champions are made, not born.” I think most of us dream about becoming champions and, even when those dreams don’t come to pass, we still love to cheer for heroes and we yearn to follow inspirational leaders. Books and films about champions in sports, politics, business, and social change are best sellers, because we want to know what makes these men and women tick, what sets them apart, and what secret strategies or special capabilities undergird their success. Those of us who make our careers in early childhood education cherish our leaders too, whether they set the pace for us as advocates such as Helen Blank and Marcie Whitebook; policy leaders such as Joan Lombardi, Harriet Dichter, and the late Helen Taylor; or researchers such as Robert Pianta, Barbara Bow- man, and Sharon Lynn Kagan. We’re curious about them too. As we implement policies they develop, attend their keynote speeches, or read their writings, we wonder about how they became so productive and influential. How did they navigate their pathway to leadership? What would we learn if they invited us to watch them negotiate behind closed doors with legislators, governors, con- gressional staff, or cabinet secretaries? How they would advise us if we could persuade one of them to become our mentor or leadership coach? What if we could spend a day talking with them about their lessons learned from decades of leadership at the highest level? The book you are about to read, Doing the Right Thing for Children: Eight Qualities of Leadership, answers these questions from the perspective of one of my all-time, top-10, favorite early childhood leaders, Maurice Sykes. I first met Maurice in the early 1990s when he served as director of early childhood for the District of Columbia Public School System, leading a system-wide effort to xi COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL