Is "leadering" an actual word? [closed]

Solution 1:

The word is essentially verbing the noun leader. Existentially, it is as much a word as you want to consider it to be; actually, I haven't found it in any dictionary and usage appears rare, so in most situations readers would find it either unusual or awkward.

For example, here are a couple of hits I've found in academic literature:

Massengale, J.D. (1995). Visionary leadership and the physical educator. Physical Educator, 52(4), 219-222. (Found via COCA):

There are literally thousands (Bass, 1990) of studies that report the characteristics of leadership, and what leaders are always like. The literature suggests that competent leaders are always bright, seem to seek responsibility and authority, display skills at whatever they are " leadering " in, seem to display a contagious enthusiasm, are always perceived to possess a tremendous capacity for hard work, and have a great sense of humor most of the time.

Luskin, R. (1987). Measuring political sophistication. American Journal of Political Science, 31(4), 856-899. doi:10.2307/2111227

Few people toe any party of factional line absolutely, but since cue taking saves effort, most do engage in some follow-the-leadering of this sort.

Both uses feel invented for the occasion: Massengale puts his usage in quotes, and Luskin marks his own invention (building off of the children's game "follow the leader") with hyphens. Furthermore, like some examples of verbing (more information in "Do You Even Language, Bro?"), the meaning is easy enough to guess: leadering means acting as a leader, and follow-the-leadering means acting like in the game follow the leader to line up (literally or figuratively) behind someone else.

Save for the extra flair of academic style, then, you would want to consider whether similar words would be clearer for your audience, like leadership or leading.