The Emperor and the New Clothes: Engaging the Frivolity of Ethical and Moral Leadership as Espoused Values Against the Values of use

University Education in South Africa has been a subject of transformation in systematic ways and over time. This has had to call upon the multi-dimensional approaches (about MLG Systems and Practices) due to the complexity of the subject. While remarkable progress has been made, and can be evidenced by empirical data, such developments remain elusive for some universities within the sector. Strangely, even the considerable highly ranked universities have not been spared from what can be argued as the complexity of power relations in the politics of knowledge and of being and becoming. This article is based on this issue about complexity in university education, which can play out more as the continuities than what should be the discontinuities from the old regimes of power and of truth. A Case study approach was applied as a methodology, with the actual methods about data management including organisational records, content analysis and critical discourse analysis, over time. Informing such an approach was the ideal of ensuring the theory-methodology-practical program aspects of a potentially credible scholarship project. As such the social realist theory, informed by the critical realist philosophy, served as the anchor of the study that this article is reporting on. The findings relate to what can become the enduring management, leadership and governance crisis in the case of university education, thus constituting the micro politics of being and becoming, despite what can be reported about the same case at macro level. Such cases call upon scholarly critiques if the practical alternatives might constitute the realms of new possibilities. The potential value of the study can be the enhanced dialogue and sustained conversations about the role of management, leadership and governance systems in university education, which have to be maintained and sustained by the idea of ethical and moral practices in pursuit of what ought to be the public and common good.