Compassionate mid-level educational leadership in higher education

Abstract

Purpose Mid-level educational leaders in universities are responsible for educational quality yet lack formal managerial authority. This study examines how they exercise compassionate leadership while re-sponding to competing organisational responsibilities. Design/methodology/approach The study draws on semi-structured interviews with 15 mid-level educational leaders across facul-ties at a large Danish university. Using an abductive approach, it brings Max Scheler’s phenomeno-logical account of compassion into dialogue with the empirical material to explore compassionate leadership among mid-level educational leaders. Findings Participants described responsibility as requiring attention and action when colleagues struggle, stu-dents are affected or problems arise in educational practice. They described attending to colleagues’ and students’ concerns while also responding to organisational responsibilities. Their accounts in-cluded explaining decisions, providing reassurance, coordinating activities, representing concerns within the organisation and addressing conditions that affect others. At the same time, recognising others’ difficulties does not in itself determine what should be done. Rather, leaders remained re-sponsive to others while carrying out their educational and organisational responsibilities. Originality/value The study suggests that compassionate leadership involves remaining responsive to colleagues’ and students’ concerns even when institutional responsibilities require actions that do not alleviate those concerns. It extends existing accounts of compassionate leadership by drawing on Scheler’s phenomenology of compassion, which has received little attention in leadership research. Rather than understanding compassion as a sequential process of recognising suffering and acting to alleviate it, the analysis conceptualises compassion as fellow-feeling: a distinct act that may accompany, but does not determine acts of leadership. This distinction makes it possible to understand leadership situations as encompassing compassion alongside judgement and responsibility.