Mapping the knowledge structure of leadership research: Trajectory, turning points, and emerging frontiers

Abstract

The leadership reflects competencies that drive, stimulate, and uplift individuals or teams in the organization, navigating the core path-goal by embracing sustainable strategies. Effective accomplishment through leadership ensures escalating outcomes with innovation, crafting compatibility and strength in a dynamic business atmosphere. Despite the evolution of leadership literature and its empirical exploration, a rare bibliometric study exists mapping the trajectory, direction, and future study of the theme. Therefore, this study attempts to analyze the structure of leadership research, scanning trajectory, turning points, and emerging frontiers through a bibliometric lens. This research involves a 525-item Scopus dataset representing the time from 2006 to 2025. The analysis comprises yearly publication, citation status, three-field plot, source, prolific contributors, affiliation, sources’ impact, manuscript-producing states, cited nations, corresponding authors’ countries, highly occurring terms, thematic map, trend topic, co-occurrence, coupling of countries, and co-citation. The findings of the study revealed an escalating trajectory of leadership research and a manifested rise in citation status. Similarly, outcomes extracted from the three-field plot, occurring terms, thematic map, and trend topic exhibit the most popular terms: leadership, transformational leadership, leadership style, and performance. Next, the diverse countries, affiliations, and sources involved in the investigation of the leadership theme during the study period. This exploration contributes to a better understanding of the leadership research landscape and expands the compiled evidence that supports the existing literature. Also, the academic community and research scholars can orient their future research to investigate relevant themes.