This article presents the findings of two case studies of leadership and management in engineering departments in two British universities, one a chartered university and one a statutory university. The studies are the first in a series of "pairs" of such studies in departments of various academic discipline and size, in the two types of university. Data were collected by semi-structured interviews with the heads of the two departments and members of their staff who have leadership and/or management roles. The most striking feature of the study is the very different cultures and organizational structures of the two departments and their very different approaches to leadership and management. The studies also raises questions regarding the findings of other researches and writings, namely that heads of department have unreasonably high workloads, that large university departments are difficult to manage and that collegiality is the preferred model of decision-making.