This dissertation suggests that, while the book of Proverbs is sometimes difficult to interpret and its redaction history is clearly complex, it has much to say on the important area of leadership. To test this hypothesis, it applies four steps as its theoretical framework, and these later become part of the contributions of this study. First, its exploration of leadership in the Ancient Near East (ANE) shows that the ANE offers a good background to leadership in ancient Israel. Second, its survey of the scholarly debates on leadership in Proverbs reveals that the question of how Proverbs fosters leadership has been hugely neglected. The previous discussion has centred on the settings that produced the proverbs and the impact of ANE materials on Proverbs. Third, this enquiry maintains that poetics is an important tool for biblical exegesis and that it can help us to understand the possible meanings of the text. Its contribution lies with the use of exegetical analysis to demonstrate how Proverbs fosters aspects of leadership through the close analysis of poetic devices such as parallelisms, metaphors and imagery. The thesis conducts a detailed exploration of some verses that are judged to contain sayings that are relevant to the theme of leadership in Proverbs, demonstrating their complexity. It proposes a reading strategy of classifying the leadership texts in Proverbs into themes relating to the status, code of conduct, personality, skills and actions of leaders and the community’s response to leaders. Fourth, it critically summarises the results of my exegetical findings in Proverbs and their implications for the biblical scholars surveyed, as well as for contemporary leadership scholars. The thesis concludes with the application of my exegetical findings to one aspect of leadership in Proverbs to Christian leadership in Nigeria.