This article provides a theoretically informed and empirically grounded analysis of the local political leadership of economic development policy. It is a small-N comparative study examining two cities in England and two in Spain: Birmingham in the Midlands and Manchester in the north-west of England, and Seville and Malaga, both in the southern region of Andalusia. Our analysis draws on the literature of political leadership styles informed by the typology of urban leadership developed by John and Cole in 1999. Our core purpose was to advance empirical knowledge of how local leadership styles affect the governance of economic development policy. We do so by identifying the decisive actors involved in the ecosystem of municipal economic development policy, the style of local political leader in each case and the impact of different local government systems in Spain and England on the governance of municipal economic development policy. Our findings point to the scope for further theoretical development of John and Cole’s typology to fully capture a shared and collaborative leadership style which our research revealed as increasingly prevalent in local governance.