The purpose of this conceptual paper is to explore the constructs of school leadership that have gained primacy over the past 20 years. In doing so, I discuss how structures limit the role of the leader in school organisations has been overlooked, particularly ignoring the resource dependency of schools and the external control of resources they do acquire. What I argue is that leadership is an "anti-resource discourse." That is, the focus on leadership allows the neoliberal discourse to ignore and obscure the inequitable funding of schools in the USA.