In order for companies to be able to reach the global market more easily and to meet customers’ expectations, strategic alliances have increased. Strategic alliances form when two or more companies decide to cooperate to reach a higher strategic purpose, which they cannot do individually. Many alliances do not succeed and strategic alliances are often very difficult to manage and requires a competent management and leadership. Previous research claims that leadership plays a major role in the success of strategic alliances.

The aim of the study was to contribute to better understanding of what impact leadership have in strategic alliance. The method used was based on a qualitative research design with semi structured interviews from six companies in different sectors.

The results of the study indicate that leadership has an important impact in a strategic alliance. The results also indicate that the four success factors; trust, interdependence, communication and conflict management, are important to succeed with the alliance. Leaders strives to create trust by building good relationships internally and externally within the alliance. The leaders of the companies experienced interdependence which was considered positive. All leaders put a lot of effort to ensure good communication, which is done by being transparent, straightforward, open and honest in his communication. The few conflicts that arose in the alliances were resolved at one time by being diplomatic and creative.