Bromell asks: Who do I need to be and become, and how do I need to behave, to work well in public life with people who want and value different things? This introductory chapter sets out the challenge of public leadership when working with diverse publics. It distinguishes between leaders and leadership and summarises some recent thinking about public leadership and New Public Management/New Public Governance managerialism in public administration. Bromell welcomes a recent shift of focus in public policy education from training analysts to cultivating leadership, introduces the use of competencies and competency frameworks, and proposes to draw on political theory and social ethics to frame a limited set of interpersonal competencies (soft skills) as ethical competencies (hard soft skills) for public leadership in contexts of pluralism.