Leadership is the process of influencing an individual or a group of individuals to achieve a common goal. Knowledge workers usually have distinct goal orientations, values, need structures and behavioural patterns. Their tasks usually involve a high risk of failure and frequent disruptions, delays and setbacks. Based on research that I have carried out on knowledge workers working in Indian R&D organisations, I have identified five important leader behaviours namely, task-orientation, relation-orientation, empowering, authenticity and team-building, that have the potential to impact knowledge workers’ motivation and performance. I call this the ‘T-R-E-A-T’ model of leadership. Leadership is the process of influencing an individual or a group of individuals to achieve a common goal. Knowledge workers usually have distinct goal orientations, values, need structures and behavioural patterns. Their tasks usually involve a high risk of failure and frequent disruptions, delays and setbacks. Based on research that I have carried out on knowledge workers working in Indian R&D organisations, I have identified five important leader behaviours namely, task-orientation, relation-orientation, empowering, authenticity and team-building, that have the potential to impact knowledge workers’ motivation and performance. I call this the ‘T-R-E-A-T’ model of leadership.