This article contributes to understanding of professionalism in early childhood education and argues that in working to implement a mandated curriculum framework, professional identity and professionalism can be enhanced. While primarily focused on examining the nature of leadership practice during professional development and learning to implement the Australian Early Years Learning Framework, this research offers insights into educators' subjectivities. A particular focus was to examine the influence of different social domains to understand how agency and structure were implicated in the enactment of leadership. Analysis of data from two case studies in early childhood centres suggested that professional identity was socially constructed with collaborative professional dialogue contributing to educators' sense of agency.