When a state in the USA enacted legislation that radically altered its prescriptions for principal preparation programmes, its institutions of higher education had to re-invent, not just adjust their principal preparation programmes. In this article I describe how one university rebuilt its principal preparation programme and then analyse the process with constructs from contemporary theories about complex organisations, change, and leadership. My findings indicate that understandings of change initiatives are enriched by adopting complexity theory's focus on interactions and connections, by viewing change as a process of diffusion, and by recognising that change in a complex organisation requires multiple types of leadership.