Implementing and sustaining school-wide learning initiatives through a wider distribution of leadership is espoused as a means of generating a higher quality ‘harvest’ of student learning outcomes. Two in-depth 20-month case studies situated in urban New Zealand secondary schools revealed that the ‘harvest’ of improved student learning was more challenging than first envisaged. Perspectives of the school leadership teams, the teachers and 500 students revealed multiple sources of influence in relation to student learning with some possibly related to the two respective initiatives that each school had introduced. Tensions between the change that the schools wanted to see and what they actually experienced arose due to day-to-day demands, other initiatives and a limit to resources. Consequently planting for a ‘harvest’ of improved student learning is a long one, packaged approaches and expected quick results are not realistic, nor should they be encouraged for the leadership for learning. Introduction The challenge of improving outcomes for students is at the forefront of school leadership literature and policy and though I totally support this focus I entered into a research study of distributed forms of leadership related to curriculum implementation and initiatives to improve student achievement with some concerns. On the one hand it could appear that given the right conditions (soil), ingredients (seed and fertiliser), resources (tools to tend and look after the ground), leadership (the farmers with their hired hands) that improvements should occur with student achievement (the harvest). However, reducing the learning process in schools to what appears to „work‟ may not be all that helpful (Simkins, 2005). My concerns are related to the often prescribed process of managing change and associating leadership with student outcomes.