Leading for learning: organizational transformation and the formation of leaders

With the recent emergence of organizational and systemic restructuring in Anglo‐American societies, leadership and the search for prospective leaders has taken on new significance. Focuses on leader development and defines the nurturing of leaders as leader formation. Doubt is cast on the efficacy of currently popular leader models, such as transformational leadership, which purport to facilitate and enhance organizational learning. Instead, if leaders are to promote learning, recognition of a shift in focus in leadership studies towards constructivism and contextualism is required. Documents and illustrates these trends by a historical instance of institutionalized leader formation: the English public school tradition of gifted amateur, gentlemanly power. Draws the implications of the case for instrumental approaches to leadership, organizational learning and programmes of management development.