The Neuroscience of Trust and What It Means for Early Childhood Leadership
- Sarah Moore
- Aug 18
- 4 min read
There’s a moment I come back to often.
Years ago, I was sitting across from a mentor, someone I deeply respected, when he asked me a question I wasn’t expecting. It was simple, but powerful. The kind of question that lingers long after the conversation ends.
He said, “Sarah, do you realise the way you listen changes people?”
At the time, I didn’t. I was early in my leadership journey, still learning to trust my instincts. But something about the way he said it, calm, clear, without any agenda, landed in me. It shifted the way I saw myself. It grew my confidence. It made me braver in how I showed up with others.
What I didn’t know back then, but understand now is that moment wasn’t just meaningful. It was biochemical.
Trust isn't just a feeling. It's a brain state.
Neuroscience tells us that when we feel safe in a relationship whether it’s with a mentor, a colleague, or a leader our brain releases a cascade of neurochemicals that support learning, collaboration, and higher-order thinking.
Oxytocin (often called the bonding hormone) helps us feel connected. Serotonin stabilises mood and supports openness.
These chemicals activate the prefrontal cortex, the part of our brain responsible for problem-solving, empathy, and creativity. But when we feel unsafe, judged, or under pressure, the brain shifts. Cortisol and adrenaline can flood the system. We can easily move into protect mode, which means our thinking narrows, our listening declines, and our capacity to lead, reflect, or collaborate evaporates. In other words, how we feel in a conversation determines what our brain can actually do.
This has enormous implications for leadership.
From Theory to Practice: What it looks like in a real service
Imagine two team meetings happening at the same time in two different early childhood services. In the first, the director opens with frustration: “I need everyone to be more consistent. I’m tired of repeating myself.”
The team shifts uncomfortably. One educator crosses her arms. Someone else checks the clock. No one speaks. Their brains, quite literally, have gone into self-protection mode.
Now picture the second service. The director begins with curiosity: “I’ve noticed a few routines have shifted recently, and I’m wondering what’s been tricky. Let’s take five minutes to unpack it together.”
There’s still accountability, but it’s wrapped in safety. The tone opens the nervous system, not shuts it down. The team responds. They problem-solve together. And solutions emerge not from fear, but from trust. That’s the power of brain-aligned leadership. It’s not soft. It’s smart. And it’s backed by science.
Where mentoring comes in
Mentoring, at its core, is a relational practice, but its effects are deeply neurological, psychological, and cultural.
It’s not a side activity or a nice extra. When done well, it becomes a fundamental leadership tool, one that transforms the way leaders think, respond, and show up in their services.
The research tells us that mentoring significantly improves a person’s self-efficacy, which is the internal belief in their own capacity to lead, adapt, and influence others effectively (Lankau & Scandura, 2002). And according to Bandura’s Social Learning Theory, people don’t just learn by being told, they learn by watching.
A leader who is mentored in an environment of psychological safety doesn’t just gain strategies; they begin to model the very behaviours they experienced, presence, steadiness, curiosity, and trust.
This is where the ripple begins.
Leaders who are supported in this way begin to interact with their teams differently. Their language softens. Their listening deepens. They become less reactive and more responsive, not because they’ve been told to, but because they’ve felt the benefits of being held that way themselves.
Teams begin to sense the shift. Meetings feel safer. Conversations become more honest. The emotional temperature lowers. Instead of rushing to solutions or shutting down under pressure, people begin thinking together.
Over time, this creates a shift in culture, one where communication isn’t just transactional, but relational. It’s this shift that begins to hold and sustain the kind of professional environments where educators can actually do their best thinking and their best work.
And when educators feel safe and supported, the impact on children and families is both immediate and lasting. A regulated educator is more able to co-regulate with a dysregulated child.
A calm, connected team is more likely to respond to families with empathy and clarity, even in moments of challenge.
The tone of the service changes.
You feel it in the way people greet one another. You see it in the way teams repair after rupture. You hear it in the way staff speak to children and each other. These aren’t just signs of good culture, they’re signs of embedded, relational leadership. The kind of leadership that mentoring makes possible.
That’s why The Dandelion Project places mentoring at the centre, not just as a skill to be learned, but as a practice to be lived. When mentoring becomes part of the everyday rhythm of leadership, services become more than compliant or functional.
They become places where people grow. Places where trust becomes practice. And places where children, educators, and families are all better held, because the leaders are, too.
Why we created The Dandelion Project
This is the science and the soul behind The Dandelion Project.
It’s not just a mentoring program. It’s a way of embedding trust-based leadership into early childhood services, especially those that don’t always have easy access to this kind of support.
We focus on:
Teaching leaders how to build trust through everyday communication.
Supporting mentoring relationships that feel safe, reflective, and real.
Strengthening the conditions that allow people to think clearly, speak honestly, and lead with presence.
Because when leaders feel seen and supported, they begin to show up differently. And the ripple effect touches everyone, educators, children, and families.
And like the dandelion, those seeds are travelling.
If this resonates
If something in you recognises the need for a different kind of leadership culture, one that values reflection over reactivity, mentoring over micromanaging, and trust over control, I invite you to explore the Dandelion Project.
Whether you're a director, an emerging leader, or part of a regional support network, this work is for you.
Or book a discovery call to see how we might be able to support you and your service here:
Let’s build something grounded in science, anchored in trust, and grown through human connection.
Because leadership doesn’t have to feel lonely. It can feel like community!
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