Elite orchestration and mediation of national leadership development provision

AbstractResearch findings are reported explaining why and how senior officials responsible for each intervention, construed as intermediate-level elites, responded to their remit in developing provision within parameters variably set and monitored by government elites. The interventions catered for individuals at different career stages, with a mixed focus on improving present practice as leaders and preparing for possible promotion to a more senior post. The government linkage with leading reforms was diluted. Most representative bodies for senior staff in the three service sectors supported interventions as means of professionalizing their members through specialist training as leaders. A government initiative to rationalize provision across the suite of interventions was resisted by emphasizing the context-sensitivity of provision for each service sector. An abductive explanation is advanced of the generative mechanisms at play, centring on the moderate subversion of acculturation and its delimitation by government arrangements directly or indirectly regulating the interventions.