Pedagogical leadership is increasingly emphasised in education policies and leadership standards. Yet conceptualisations of pedagogy and pedagogical leadership vary from a focus on compliance that operationalises the role of formal school leaders, through to notions of pedagogical leadership as a praxis-oriented practice. This paper focuses on pedagogical leading practices in school settings in Sweden and Australia. Utilising the theory of practice architectures, it explores how historical notions of pedagogical leadership have changed over time in the two countries. Findings show that there are different depths of pedagogical understanding and differences between understandings of individual and collective pedagogy in policy, school leadership and practice. Both cases raise questions about the state of educational leadership and pedagogical leadership globally and the decentring of pedagogy from students, the ultimate purpose of pedagogical practice. Properly understanding pedagogy is one way of decentring the popular role title ‘pedagogical leader’.