This article is concerned with the way school leadership literature might act to prop up recent managerialist reform in education, that is the problem of 'textual apologism'. The discussion revolves around, and gives examples of, three broad categories of textual apologism: primarily problem solving, overt apologism and subtle apologism. School leadership also has a substantial critical or textually dissenting literature which is also discussed and exemplified. It is argued that this latter literature holds important potential for challenging the orthodoxy of school leadership. The article concludes by offering examples of dissenting messages school leadership texts should be providing to practitioners and considers implications for future scholarship in the area of school leadership.