Leadership constitutes one of the indispensable components of organizational health. Leadership is frequently correlated with setting direction for followers, inspiring and motivating them for organizational goals and establishing an organizational ecosystem of trust, transparency, collaboration and shared values. Data could function as an important instrument for leaders to influence followers. Data can contribute to leadership processes by assisting leaders to orient followers towards a shared vision. The notion that data are the only organizational assets which cannot be depleted by spending and functions of data for organizational processes paved the way for the rise of data based leadership, which can figure out solutions to confirmed issues of organizational leadership. This study focuses on both theoretical background and components of data based leadership as well as instruments to foster it. The role of data based leadership for organizational planned change, innovation and transformation processes and organizational learning are also disclosed