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Purpose This research advances recent scholarly conversations regarding the role of the physical body in organizational leadership by reviewing, synthesizing and clarifying extant literature on embodied leadership. In doing so, this study aims to advance embodied leadership approaches in the empirical study and practical application of organizational leadership. Design/methodology/approach The authors apply an integrative review (Cronin & George, 2023) of embodiment in the organizational leadership literature to identify three communities of practice in which the concept has been explored, distill findings from each community to identify common themes and then synthesize those themes into an integrative conceptual framework. Findings This study shows that scholarship on embodied leadership is fragmented across three communities of practice: leadership development, leadership aesthetics and leadership emergence. By synthesizing these streams, the authors propose an integrated conceptual definition of embodied leadership as a group-level influence process involving bodily sensing, regulation and leaderlike enactment. Finally, the authors present an integrative conceptual model that clarifies how the body shapes leadership situations and enactments, offering a foundation for future empirical study. Originality/value Embodied leadership approaches are popular in the practices of coaching, organizational development and human resource development, while scientific understanding lags. The authors define embodied leadership and offer an exploratory conceptual model to enable future scholars to further explore the role of the physical body in leadership processes.