The purpose of the study was to investigate what employees in fine-dining restaurants perceive to be desirable characteristics of a leader based on transformative, transactional, and authoritarian leadership. The study was qualitative and used a deductive thematic analysis with eight semi-structured interviews. The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) designed by Bass (1985) and authoritarian leadership was used as the theoretical background.   The two requirements to participate was for the respondents to have worked in a fine-dining restaurant within the last two years. The results showed that the desirable characteristics of a leader were committed, encouraging, solution-oriented, creative, patient, responsive, caring, ambitious, relationship-building, and communicative. The desirable qualities characterize a transformative leadership. The results of the study may be relevant to the development of leadership in fine-dining restaurants.