The Deceitful Romance of Caring Leadership: A Leaders’ Perspective

The romance of leadership argues that followers romanticize their leaders. Part of

this romance emerges from followers’ need to fill a void in their lives. The archetype of the

caring leader is precisely a type of romantic ideal of leaders that followers build specifically to

satisfy their inner frustration of feeling abandoned in a world that does not care for them. So

far, we understand, thus, the followers’ side of this equation. However, what about leaders?

How could being casted as caring leaders benefit them? In this paper, using primary research

done in the context of a turbulent period of regulatory change in English higher education, I

argue that the archetype of the caring leader enables leaders to romanticize their followers as

children in distress that need them. Something that allows leaders to fill the void of feeling

impotent by recouping some power while pretending to save their children.