The concept of instructional leadership is constrained by social conventions that derive from a technical notion devoted to managerial rather than educational ends. This paper analyzes (1) assumptions held about leadership and instruction, (2) these notions in other contexts and practices, and (3) effects of such practices on the lives of teachers. The notion of leadership is devoid of educational purpose because moral discourse has been abandoned for the technical discourse of managerialism, so that education is regarded as a production process. In the development of industrial capitalism, the most successful alternatives to owner control of the production process have been based upon bureaucratic systems of rule specification, incentives, and task evaluation. That schools were not matching production of knowledge with the wider society was presented as a managerial problem, to be solved by translating technical knowledge rapidly into the schools. The accompanying ideology has led to a deskilling of teachers' traditional craft and a reskilling in terms of managerial work, but with restrictions on responsible autonomy. A theory of education as a form of cultural politics will recover its essential social and moral basis. (CJH)