An educator who approaches his practice reflexively, critically reflects on his actions and attitudes, and whose goal is further advancement and lifelong learning, can certainly be considered a pedagogically competent individual. This paper aimed at determining which competencies the educators themselves consider necessary for pedagogical leadership, how they assess their own competences, and which, in their opinion, is the best way to develop the necessary competences. 30 educators of the Kindergarten "Pinokio" in Donji Miholjac participated in the research. The results show that the participants consider "Understanding the physical, cognitive and social development of a child" to be the most important competence, while they placed "Application of new technologies at work" at the bottom of the scale of importance. "Appreciation of diversity and multiculturalism" is the most developed competence of the educators. "Cooperation with parents" and "Professional development" share the last place, as the least developed competences. Statistically significant differences in the assessment of one’s own competences were also detected in relation to: previous education, work experience in early and preschool education and place of work. The results show that there are no statistically significant differences in the development of competencies with regard to the age of the respondents. The third aspect of the research was related to the ways of acquiring the necessary competencies. It can be concluded that educators give priority to in-service experience, before education and professional development.