Leadership and care ethics in the voluntary sector: a tensions approach

Abstract

The subjects of leadership and care ethics have a limited presence in the voluntary sector literature. However, interest has grown in the former in recent years, and the latter has been suggested as a potential counter discourse to contemporary neoliberal narratives of the sector. What is missing from these accounts is an acknowledgement of the often unresolvable ethical and leadership tensions that are encountered in practice contexts. This article offers a nuanced view of how care ethics flows through leadership, using empirical data to illuminate an alternative reading of the literature. It contributes to debates around leadership in the voluntary sector by both offering a nuanced, ethically inflected theoretical understanding and providing an approach through which to inform leadership practice.