This article explores the ways in which leadership and management development (LMD) in England has been researched and analysed over the past 40 years. The article is in two parts. The first analyses the ways in which patterns of provision have evolved in response to changing conceptions of how the school system should be organized and how, consequently, the roles of those responsible for administering, managing and leading it should be constructed. This analysis shows how patterns of LMD provision have changed, with a slow but consistent movement from relatively limited and fragmented provision to one of the most centralized forms in the world. The second part broadens out the analysis, using as a framework three "perspectives": the functionalist, the constructivist and the critical. It explores the literature on LMD, identifying areas of consensus or conflict, and suggesting where more work needs to be done. This includes more work from a variety of constructivist perspectives, especially on leader identity formation; more critical analysis of the content and processes of LMD; and more work on the ways in which power is distributed and used in LMD, especially at the "meso" level between the individual programme or activity and national policy. (Contains 10 notes.)