Neoliberally influenced educational policy emphasizing efficacy, excellence, competition, productivity, deregulation and increased individual responsibility, has taken various shapes in the education sector in the Nordic countries. Common for all is an increased focus on school leadership, accountability, quality assurance and evaluation. The on-going shift indicates a modification of the post-war educational doctrine of the Nordic welfare state assuming mutual positive effects between economic growth, welfare, political and cultural citizenship, and the state having a central role. The paper reminds of that the on-going reconstruction process or (re)professionalization of school leadership, is coherent with the renewed education policy. The main argument of the paper is, however, that the leadership type, tasks and role resulting from this (re)professionalization may conflict with the teacher ideal increasingly promoted by academic teacher education in the Nordic countries since the 1970s. Broadly taken, the academic teacher ideal was developed, first, as a consequence of equal and compulsory education for all, led by democratic ideals, and later as a response to various steps in the decentralization of curriculum planning and other forms of deregulation during the 80’s and 90’s which required an independent professional.