It is fair to state that, until relatively recently, the British Armed Forces believed that they led the way in leadership development and training, and with some justification. However, the present New Labour administration and the Ministry of Defence "MoD" do not share that view, and have issued a direct challenge to the Armed Services to examine and improve the manner in which they develop and train their people with regard to leadership. The challenge has come about due to a number of government and MoD-led initiatives. These include the "Modernising Government" and the "Reforming our Public Services" initiatives, the "Defence Training Review", as well as the push for working closer with the Civil Service and private sector through public-private partnerships. This has major implications for the Armed Forces, as they must not only reshape their approach to leadership development and training, particularly with regard to day-to-day MoD business, but also they need to recognise that more needs to be done to help their people develop new skills to meet the ever-changing business and other demands now being placed upon them. The aim of the authors' work is to identify how the military is expected to change its approach, and to test the feasibility of this by creating a new model based on a partnership concept that will enable the Armed Forces to deliver leadership development and training that meets the new demands placed upon them, whilst still maintaining the public service ethos. (Contains 1 figure.)