What's the difference between figurehead and leader?

Figurehead


Definition:

  • (n.) The figure, statue, or bust, on the prow of a ship.
  • (n.) A person who allows his name to be used to give standing to enterprises in which he has no responsible interest or duties; a nominal, but not real, head or chief.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) He hopes they can slowly build up a genuine grassroots, non-party political movement that may eventually become the figurehead for the pro-UK campaign in the independence referendum.
  • (2) This has prompted some to tip Correa as a potential successor to Venezuela's Hugo Chávez as the figurehead of the Latin-American left.
  • (3) While the reshuffle may be partly to appease fans who resent his position as a figurehead, it could also be seen as a tacit admission that Ashley got a big football decision horribly wrong last season, in deciding not to replace Alan Pardew and almost suffering relegation as a result.
  • (4) I was turned into this figurehead for baseball players trying to be more political,” he says.
  • (5) Opinion polls predict a landslide victory for Mahmoud Jibril, the tribal figurehead and former rebel prime minister, who is an ally of Hiftar and living in self-imposed exile in Abu Dhabi.
  • (6) Diane Abbott will continue to be a key figurehead in Labour’s general election campaign, the party has indicated, despite a stumbling radio performance in which she struggled to explain how a pledge to hire 10,000 extra police officers would be funded.
  • (7) Within half an hour, George Galloway – the native of Dundee, MP for Bradford West, a former Labour MP for inner Glasgow, and figurehead of the Respect party – is sitting in Wetherspoon's, devouring fish and chips and granting about a dozen requests for photographs.
  • (8) The band formed in response to Putin's decision to return to the presidency, and have gone from being a radical fringe group to becoming the figureheads of a protest movement numbering tens of thousands.
  • (9) The 37-year-old became Pegida’s national figurehead after founder Lutz Bachmann resigned a week ago after news that he was being investigated.
  • (10) His future role has been compared to that of Beppe Grillo, the M5S's figurehead who himself has not been elected.
  • (11) Nigel Farage, the key figurehead for Leave.EU, did not appear to be in combative mood after the decision was announced.
  • (12) Part of it is based in movement building but it also involves running people for office at every level.” She hesitates to suggest her book as a rallying cry for a political party – she is wary of making herself anything like a figurehead, hoping to be “one voice among many” – but suggests that there are ideas in it that people might gather around.
  • (13) The Sweden international moved to Paris from Milan in the summer of 2012 as the figurehead purchase of Qatar Sport Investments’ vast outlay on new players.
  • (14) Warren has hitherto insisted she is not running for president herself, but spoke out passionately against the “cromnibus” and presents a growing challenge to what her supporters dismissively call the Wall Street wing of the party and its figurehead: Hillary Clinton.
  • (15) As the figurehead and part-inspiration for the 1990s campaign to restore the link between pensions and earnings which she had introduced 20 years earlier, she finally won the near-universal applause of which she had so long dreamed.
  • (16) In just a few weeks, Cohn-Bendit, who was soon to receive a deportation order from the French government for his role in the ferment, had gone from local student activist to an international figurehead for revolution.
  • (17) This goes some way to explaining the phenomenon, but really, only those people who have been in its presence will know what I’m getting at when I say that this behaviour relies on the existence of a certain “type”, and that that type is not so far removed from that of the Bullingdon club figureheads who govern us.
  • (18) Seen as a figurehead for the movement, Liu was taken into detention shortly before the document was published online.
  • (19) It is a figurehead maybe, although one that is less svelte mermaid than bullying bouncer.
  • (20) • Also caught up in last week’s FBI Concacaf headlines : Jack Warner – these days focused on his new life in Trinidad as an anti-corruption figurehead.

Leader


Definition:

  • (n.) One who, or that which, leads or conducts; a guide; a conductor.
  • (n.) One who goes first.
  • (n.) One having authority to direct; a chief; a commander.
  • (n.) A performer who leads a band or choir in music; also, in an orchestra, the principal violinist; the one who plays at the head of the first violins.
  • (n.) A block of hard wood pierced with suitable holes for leading ropes in their proper places.
  • (n.) The principal wheel in any kind of machinery.
  • (n.) A horse placed in advance of others; one of the forward pair of horses.
  • (n.) A pipe for conducting rain water from a roof to a cistern or to the ground; a conductor.
  • (n.) A net for leading fish into a pound, weir, etc. ; also, a line of gut, to which the snell of a fly hook is attached.
  • (n.) A branch or small vein, not important in itself, but indicating the proximity of a better one.
  • (n.) The first, or the principal, editorial article in a newspaper; a leading or main editorial article.
  • (n.) A type having a dot or short row of dots upon its face.
  • (n.) a row of dots, periods, or hyphens, used in tables of contents, etc., to lead the eye across a space to the right word or number.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) In attacking the motion to freeze the licence fee during today's Parliamentary debate the culture secretary, Andy Burnham, criticised the Tory leader.
  • (2) Squadron Leader Kevin Harris, commander of the Merlins at Camp Bastion, the main British base in Helmand, praised the crews, adding: "The Merlins will undergo an extensive programme of maintenance and cleaning before being packed up, ensuring they return to the UK in good order."
  • (3) On 9 January 2002, a few hours after Blair became the first western leader to visit Afghanistan's new post-Taliban leader, Hamid Karzai, an aircraft carrying the first group of MI5 interrogators touched down at Bagram airfield, 32 miles north of Kabul.
  • (4) The criticism over the downgrading of the leader of the Lords was led by Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, a former Scotland secretary, who is a respected figure on the right.
  • (5) David Cameron last night hit out at his fellow world leaders after the G8 dropped the promise to meet the historic aid commitments made at Gleneagles in 2005 from this year's summit communique.
  • (6) To a supporter at the last election like me – someone who spoke alongside Nick Clegg at the curtain-raiser event for the party conference during the height of Labour's onslaught on civil liberties, and was assured privately by two leaders that the party was onside about civil liberties – this breach of trust and denial of principle is astonishing.
  • (7) Fatah leader Yahya Rabah said the organisation would celebrate "with our brothers in Hamas", the Ma'an news agency reported.
  • (8) We have examined the in vitro membrane assembly characteristics of a variety of leader peptidase mutants and found that domains required for insertion in vivo are also necessary for insertion in vitro.
  • (9) Meanwhile Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, waiting anxiously for news of the scale of the Labour advance in his first nationwide electoral test, will urge the electorate not to be duped by the promise of a coalition mark 2, predicting sham concessions by the Conservatives .
  • (10) For this to work, its leaders had to be able to at least influence the behaviour and tactics of the militant operators on the ground.
  • (11) Coup leader Captain Amadou Sanogo on Friday pleaded for foreign help to preserve the territorial integrity of the former French colony, a major gold and cotton producer.
  • (12) In a poll before the debate, 48% predicted that Merkel, who will become Europe's longest serving leader if re-elected on 22 September, would emerge as the winner of the US-style debate, while 26% favoured Steinbruck, a former finance minister who is known for his quick-wit and rhetorical skills, but sometimes comes across as arrogant.
  • (13) Leaders of Tory local government are preparing radical proposals for minimum 10% cuts in public spending in the search for savings.
  • (14) He is a leader and helps manage the defence, while Pablo Armero can be a bit of a loose cannon but he is certainly a talented player.
  • (15) Gove said in the interview that he did not want to be Tory leader, claiming that he lacked the "extra spark of charisma and star quality" possessed by others.
  • (16) But to treat a mistake as an automatic disqualification for advancement – even as heinous a mistake as presiding over a botched operation that resulted in the killing of an innocent man – could be depriving organisations, and the country, of leaders who have been tested and will not make the same mistake again.
  • (17) "It's a very open question as to whether this will come," said a diplomat in Brussels, adding that Cameron could find himself in the lonely position of being the sole national leader urging a renegotiation.
  • (18) The nucleoprotein gene is located proximal to the 3' end of the genome and is preceeded by a putative leader sequence.
  • (19) The PUP leader told the ABC his announcement would have international significance.
  • (20) The prime minister insisted, however, that he and other world leaders were not being stubborn over demands that the Syrian leader, President Bashar al-Assad, step down at the end of the peace process.