be successful in the above-mentioned activities requires leadership qualities. Proceeding globalization leads to tougher competition on the markets. Companies have to encounter this situation. To reach this goal the innovation and knowledge potential of the organization has to be activated. Therefore the significance of leadership increases. The goal of the report is to give the reader an insight on what leadership qualities are about, to bring together several existing approaches and to structure leadership qualities. It will be analyzed whether it is possible to find a set of leadership qualities, which constitutes an ideal leader. At first leadership will be described in a historical context. Then three theoretical concepts will be explained and brought in line with a synthesis. Those are the manager types by Maccoby, The continuum of leadership behavior of Tannenbaum and Schmidt and the fields of leadership qualities by Kets de Vries with amendments of the authors. To find out whether an ideal leader exists the theory will be applied on two Chief Executive Officers. The focus is on leadership in economic environments but leadership is also present in politics which will be taken into account as well. [...]