Higher education has seen a shift that means its leaders are no longer only being recruited and perceived as senior academics who lead teaching and research. Leaders are now sometimes recruited and viewed as managers who oversee the operation of their institution, college, faculty, or school. This paper analyses the initial findings of an international cross-institutional project focusing on the emotional labour and personal toll experienced by university leaders taking on these changing roles. The study begins by using largely unpublished interview data from 2004, and combines these findings with interviews from current university leaders conducted in 2019. Thirty-five interviews were carried out with participants ranging from university Vice-Chancellors to deputy heads of schools. The paper examines existing literature of the changing shape of higher education leadership and contrasts it with how university leaders view the largely unsustainable emotional labour and toll required to carry out their work.