Although participatory models of distributed leadership have gained traction across the higher education sector in the UK, it is also the case that forms of exclusion continue to defy aspirations for improving diversity in senior leadership across higher education. This article contends that an (undemocratic) participatory model of distributed leadership has, in effect, provided a framework through which ‘cultural cloning’ can thrive, and most importantly where the exclusion of black minority-ethnic academics can be camouflaged as normal business. This article uses ‘cultural cloning’ as a methodological tool to analyse the implications for black minority-ethnic academics against the structures, processes and politics of this participatory model of distributed leadership in higher education. It concludes that in the interests of exclusion and uniformity, an (undemocratic) participatory model of distributed leadership in higher education has become a utilitarian scaffold that is both ‘a means to an end’ and ‘an end in itself’.