Purpose: With widespread concerns around the funding and availability of care and education during early childhood, this article takes a social psychological approach to exploring some of the dilemmas facing early childhood leaders. Design/methodology/approach: The study uses an interpretivist, qualitative approach involving semi-structured interviews with six early childhood leaders in England. The participants' perspectives are analysed using the symbolic interactionist concept of the looking-glass self, neoliberal theory and the systems leadership approach. Findings: The positioning of leaders is greatly influenced by their self-image and sense of self related to how they perceive the expectations of others about their roles as leaders and the feelings of pride, recognition or disapprobation and marginalization. The looking-glass self brings insights that systems leadership and neoliberal critiques alone do not give, including that dilemmas are the daily fare of leaders in their settings rather than problems that can be neatly solved. Originality/value: Exploring the perspectives of early childhood leaders through the looking-glass self generates new research agendas for early childhood leadership that contribute to the understanding of agency and structure. Our use of the looking-glass self is original in the field of leadership in that we apply it to the analysis of leadership data as well as deploying it to critique systems leadership and neoliberalism. The practical implications for leadership practice and development include the need for leaders to understand their interactions with others, how that may affect their sense of self and how this links to macro-issues in the sector.