Despite growing interest in social justice leadership and awareness of the need to include this focus in leadership preparation and development, little is understood of practices used to support such commitment. In this article, Bacchi's (2012a) Foucaldian approach is drawn from, to provide a specific means of critically analysing what problem(s) social justice leadership preparation/development is intended to address. Through critical reflexivity, the political dimensions of policy and practice are surfaced. Through this process, key influences of regimes of power are identified, within which leadership development programmes are situated. Considerations for leadership development and school practices foreground the identification of next steps for research.