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Purpose Public leadership literature has recognised the need for specific integrative leadership style in boundary-crossing collaborations, and it has been proposed as a new umbrella term for describing such leadership in boundary-crossing settings. The article reviews the research literature on integrative leadership and describes and analyses its contents by answering the following question: What are the characteristics of integrative public leadership? Design/methodology/approach To review the integrative leadership literature, a systematic literature review was conducted. The databases and search services included Web of Science, Andor provided by Tampere University, Scopus, Emerald, Business Source Ultimate (Ebsco) and ScienceDirect (Elsevier). The search terms were accordingly chosen as integrative leadership, integrative public leadership and public integrative leadership. From the hundreds of search hits 25 research articles were selected in the reviewing process to be further analysed through qualitative content analysis. Crosby and Bryson’s (2010) framework for understanding leadership and the creation and maintenance of cross-sector collaborations was used as a starting point for the categorisation. Findings The article presents an improved integrative leadership framework that helps to identify the factors shaping integrative leadership and visualises better the interconnection of structures, processes and participants, through which leadership is enacted in the collaborative network. Originality/value The article extends the knowledge on integrative public leadership and helps to direct future research.