This paper presents the results of initial investigations into research investigating the interrelationships between policy, leadership and governance in educational organisations. The research is based on an understanding that leadership is not achieved in a social vacuum. That is, it recognises that the realisation of leadership is always set within a framework of possibilities and constraints derived from the cultural, political and economic contexts of education and from education policies framed within these contexts. Particular policy frameworks articulate particular leadership roles and responsibilities and exclude others. In addition, they shape and constrain the relationships with significant others in institutions and their environments e.g. school boards, university councils. The paper draws on insights from the fields of policy sociology, critical leadership studies and discourse theory to present a framework for further explorations into how leadership identities and practices are produced and shaped through discourses on policy and governance in educational sites, and into how leadership practices can respond to such policy and governance discourses.