This empirical study examines the professional profile of daycare center directors. The qualitative interviews yielded unexpected and contentious results. Contrary to the assumption that the difficulties of leadership lie in the area of social management, the case analyses revealed that the problems faced in leading daycare centers are fundamentally rooted in the exclusion of pedagogy from the field of action. A prominent issue is the lack of direction among daycare center directors in their professional domain. If the realization of educational objectives is understood as a constitutive element of leadership, it must be noted that there has been a failure in leadership. This also proved to be a question of professional identity. How do these identified constructs of non-leadership arise, and what systematic solutions do these constructs offer for the issues at hand? The study provides insights into these questions.