Management mit Angst?: Führungskräfte im Sozialwesen zwischen Kontrolldruck und Rettungsambitionen

Leadership in human service organizations has been a neglected issue in German management studies – even though, within these organizations, this topic is very prominent for some time now, due to strong tendencies to revamp their governance according to private business models. Driven by efficiency concerns, the implementation of governance modes alien to the human services field creates dilemmatic situations: new forms of external and internal control collide with the classical social care mandate and related needs-based norms which managers may want to uphold as far as possible. Against the backdrop of this tension field, this article focuses on two human service sectors (residential elderly care and youth employment assistance) to explore how, and with which repercussions on the wider organizational life, top and middle managers balance out encountered tensions emotionally. Based on a qualitative inquiry into accounts illuminating their personal experience, we show that multifaceted uncertainties and (latent) anxiety pervade their agency and may become a particular burden within a work context put under permanent strain, not the least by external institutional frameworks.