The purpose of this article is to explore what can be learned about management learning when social poetics is used as a perspective to make sense of how seven leaders, during a year-long top leader competence development course, constructed meaning with each other, with consultants and with researchers about what leading in ‘Cullinan ways’ means. The article is based on a relational constructionism perspective, and we bring in two aspects of social poetics – the notion of metaphors and engaging in reflexive critique – to present and discuss how the understanding and use of the concept ‘Cullinany’ continually changed and was reworked based on the conversations the seven leaders had with each other. The purpose of this presentation is to initiate a discussion about how formal management learning programmes can be understood (and possibly also designed) from a perspective in which the ontological and social poetic aspects of language are assigned primacy.