Leading backwards in a forward era: Destructive middle leadership in the pursuit of Higher Education 5.0

This study examines how faculty members in Arab higher education institutions experience and interpret destructive middle leadership within the context of Education 5.0. While this reform agenda emphasizes innovation, equity, and human-centered learning, participants described leadership practices that undermine collaboration, trust, and pedagogical creativity. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with ten faculty members (20 interviews across two iterative rounds) and analyzed through an interpretive qualitative approach, the study is guided by an integrated framework of destructive leadership, transformative learning, and distributed leadership. The analysis identifies three themes: (1) the weaponization of authority, (2) hierarchical entrenchment and institutional inertia, and (3) silencing dissent and erasing voice. Together, these patterns show that harmful leadership is not merely interpersonal but structurally embedded—sustained by performative reform discourse, bureaucratic saturation, and the routinization of exclusion. The study argues for re-conceptualizing middle leadership as an ethical, relational practice aligned with the humanistic commitments of Education 5.0, and outlines implications for leadership development, evaluative criteria, and shared governance.