Ethical Pressure and Moral Distress in Middle Leadership: Perspectives from Higher Education in Welfare Professions

This article illuminates the complex work practices of middle leaders in the higher education sector of welfare professionals. It is based on an empirical qualitative interview study exploring ethics and values dilemmas in the work-life of middle leaders and is methodologically anchored in interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), which combines hermeneutics and phenomenology with an idiographic approach to qualitative interview research. The empirical foundation consists of five research interviews with middle leaders at university colleges in Denmark, investigating their experience of ethics and values in leadership while being influenced by the complex role of their managerial position, including a particular cross-pressure that originates from hierarchical organisational structures. Building on the informants’ narratives, this article offers an extensive analysis of the complexities of middle leadership in the higher education of welfare professionals. Three central topics evolved through a cross-case analysis of the interviews: 1) values and ethical dilemmas in educational middle leadership, 2) cross-pressure and moral distress in middle leadership and 3) trust, corruption and the significance of listening in middle leadership. This article focuses on the first-person perspective of middle leaders, and the analysis reveals how middle leaders reflect on ethical dilemmas in the practice of educational leadership. Based on these empirical findings, how middle leaders experience ethical pressure and moral distress because of tension between professional values and political and organisational governance is discussed.