Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to review the literature from the organizational sciences to develop a grounded narrative of turnaround leadership. Design/methodology/approach: The paper is a review of literature, which employs a ten-step process to explore and make sense of the turnaround literature from the organizational sciences. The paper relies on strategies appropriate for document analysis, and borrows analytic strategies (e.g. memoing, coding) employed with interview data. Findings: The paper finds three defining themes that flow from the review of empirical and theoretical work on organizational recovery in firms, non-educational public agencies, and not-for-profit organizations: leadership as the critical variable in the turnaround equation; change of leadership as a generally essential element in organizational recovery; and type of leadership, but not style, as important in organizational reintegration work. Practical implications: The paper posits that the literature on turning around failing organizations in sectors outside of education provides blueprints for recovery activity in failing schools. The implications for turnaround leadership are particularly strong. Originality/value: This paper is the first systematic effort to mine research in the corporate, not-for-profit, and public sectors to develop insights for leadership in failing schools. (Contains 2 tables.)