In 2005, the School Leadership Society, later renamed the British Columbia Educational Leadership Council (BCELC), was launched with the assistance of the British Columbia Ministry of Education to transform the goals and objectives of educational leadership and management in the Province of British Columbia (BC), Canada. In this paper the authors reflect on BC policy initiatives in terms of how they construct consensus around notions of educational leadership and how they delimit a knowledge base which legitimizes the regulation of the work of school principals and vice-principals. The authors take as their point of departure a striking contradiction that students of educational leadership often face: the conceptual and theoretical confusion and lack of consensus over what educational leadership stands for which contrasts sharply with the certainty with which agencies seek to sanction, regulate and administer it. This contradiction is emphasized given the paucity of currently available empirical research that would clarify the various conceptual facets of educational leadership. (Contains 2 notes.)