So far, it has hardly been recognized that the great Austrian thinker Joseph Alois Schumpeter had developed a general theory of leadership. In this paper, we analyze how leaders promote change by building on Schumpeter's understanding of entrepreneurial leadership which fuses the concepts of entrepreneurship and leadership. Also, we analyze Schumpeter's shift in emphasis regarding his leadership theory. Specifically, Schumpeter in his early works defined entrepreneurs as individuals whose acts have significant effects on firms. However, in his late works he seems to have realized the need to extend further the boundaries of his early approach, to account for social forces.