New partnerships, cross-organisational collaborations and co-creation, digitalisation, involvement of citizens, public design and innovation stand out as new and emerging solutions in welfare delivery. However, New Public Management (NPM) seems to represent a historical repertoire of perspectives and tools that falls short of dealing with public sector challenges and the complex problems of producing welfare and public value in times of austerity. In the article, we outline a diagnosis of the emerging governance regime of the Involving Network State, and we discuss how to build involving learning communities in order to conduct the needed leadership capabilities and incorporate the impact of leadership education in a multi-contextual public sector. We argue that critical reflexivity needs to be a pivotal point in leadership programmes.