Exploring leadership in change management: a bibliometric and systematic review for enterprise development

Effective leadership is vital for guiding organisations through change, ensuring smooth transitions, and fostering resilience in today's dynamic environment. Leaders must motivate, communicate a clear vision, and build trust to navigate complex situations successfully. This paper identifies the leadership style most critical during organisational change and explores the qualities proposed by the corpus's authors. Using bibliometric analysis, we mapped conceptual structures, thematic trends, and influential contributors. A systematic literature review (SLR) was employed to develop a conceptual framework based on the suggested qualities. Findings reveal that transformational leadership is pivotal during transitions, with attributes like effective communication, employee development, integrity, and justice playing key roles. This study uniquely contributes by: 1) proposing a conceptual model differentiating leader traits by emotional, cognitive, and behavioural components; 2) utilising co-occurrence analysis to establish a conceptual framework; and 3) integrating insights from SLR and bibliometric analyses, offering a comprehensive perspective on leadership during change.