This paper explores the relevance of various leadership concepts for the governance of climate change adaptation, a policy domain that requires much entrepreneurial input. After defining four main leadership challenges which are derived from the key characteristics of climate adaptation issues, a review of modern leadership theories addressing these challenges is presented, including policy entrepreneurship, integrative leadership, leadership for connectivity, complexity leadership and eco-leadership. Based on this review, we develop an integrative framework for analyzing leadership for climate change adaptation, which distinguishes between various leadership objectives, functions and tasks. Objectives of leadership for climate adaptation may be substantive, i.e. to get accepted and implemented specific adaptation policies and projects, and/or procedural, i.e. to increase the adaptability of the organizations working on climate change adaptation. Important leadership functions that should be fulfilled to realize these objectives are the political-administrative, adaptive, enabling, connective and dissemination functions. Each function requires the execution of specific leadership tasks. Conceptually, the elements of the framework deal both with entrepreneurship by necessity, or entrepreneurship by opportunity. The framework can be used to analyze or monitor the emergence and fulfillment of specific leadership functions, and to specify the need for strengthening particular kinds of leadership in practices of climate adaptation.
