The article addresses the problem of providing in-service education within government-led reform initiatives yet enhancing professionalism in the Early Childhood Education and Care sector. The study was conducted during policy-mandated reform in Australia to investigate effective ways to support educational leaders in centres rated as not meeting the national quality standard. Data were derived from a larger project designed as a formative intervention and funded by the Australian Research Council. In this article, we focus on the positioning of the educational leaders over the course of the intervention as they endeavoured to develop workplace practices. We found that the participants' status as leaders of low-rated centres was featured in the way they positioned themselves initially. How the researchers responded has been highlighted in our analysis and, we argue, repositioning these participants as professionally capable and responsible was essential to the success of the intervention for them. This article contributes an original methodological approach to researching individual learning within the collective processes of workplace practice development and provides an understanding of the reform process from the perspective of 'working-towards' educational leaders.