This paper reports a case study examining how the leadership and management practices of a Vietnamese university influenced teacher engagement with the implementation of the student-centred teaching approach. The analysis of 30 semi-structured interviews with academics and academic leaders revealed that existing leadership and management practices failed to change teachers' habit of using traditional teaching methods. Teachers were disengaged from the implementation of student-centred methods, or executed it with discrepancies, due to their personal beliefs, a lack of student-centred teaching expertise and several contextual factors, all associated with institutional leadership and management practices. Using Fullan's six secrets of change implementation and Bourdieu's concepts of social field and habitus, this paper explains why leadership and management practices failed to engage teachers.