The Ethics of University Futures: Leadership in Higher Education

Abstract

Universities today face accelerating instability, shaped by audit cultures, performance metrics, and constant pressures for adaptation. Leadership is often framed in managerial terms of strategic control and technical problem‐solving, yet such models risk obscuring the ethical responsibility that sustains institutional life. This article develops an alternative account of leadership as a hermeneutic‐ethical practice. Drawing on Paul Ricoeur's conception of narrative identity, I argue that leaders are responsible for holding together the idem of institutional continuity with the ipse of transformation and promise. Leadership is not exhausted by decision‐making but entails the narrative labor of keeping faith with an institution's story while opening it to new possibilities. Hannah Arendt's reflections on responsibility and judgment further deepen this account by highlighting the plurality and contestability of institutional narratives. The article concludes by proposing leadership as a practice of narrative responsibility: sustaining coherence while remaining open to critique, plurality, and renewal.