Where is leadership research in the Korean management academy heading? To answer this question, this study conducted a literature review by individually examining business-related journal collections (or university bulletins) from major Korean universities published over several decades, as well as academic journals in related fields including the *Korean Management Review*, *Korean Journal of Personnel and Organization Studies*, and *Korean Journal of Human Resource Management*, to identify all leadership papers published to date. As a result, 46 leadership papers were found, with the earliest publication year being 1967 (Shin Yu-geun). A descriptive-level review, a topic/theory-level review, and a behavioral review of these 46 papers revealed that leadership research in the Korean management academy has made considerable progress over the past 30 years, yet several areas requiring improvement were identified. First, more active exchange among scholars and securing specialization and continuity in research were found to be urgently needed, and many unexplored research areas were revealed. Additionally, the need for appropriate selection of variables and measurement instruments, diversification of criterion variables, utilization of diverse research methods, and more rigorous hypothesis derivation and interpretation of results emerged. Furthermore, when studies were classified into four types based on the axes of knowledge introduction/accumulation and knowledge generation/utilization, it was determined that the era of foundational research is declining, replication research has reached maturity, and developmental and pioneering research have just entered their take-off stage. Finally, it was concluded that for Korean leadership research to achieve significant outcomes, a system capable of nurturing scholars with outstanding research capabilities must be established, and systematic motivation of scholars toward research must also be pursued.