Globalization of quality services demands every country to make a robust, accessible to all and a globally competitive healthcare system. The aim of the study was to investigate the role of strategic leadership in providing competitive quality healthcare services. Accordingly, a comparative analysis of private and public sectors teaching hospitals, located at Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan was carried out based on the prevailing strategic leadership framework and the quality of healthcare services. Suggestions are made to improve the quality gaps in healthcare services augmenting the strategic leadership interventions benchmarked with international standards. The quality of healthcare was measured using modified SERVQUAL (N= 1265 patients) into six dimension as tangibles (infrastructure), responsiveness, process of healthcare, administrative procedures, safety and trustworthiness and empathy. Further, the leadership framework (N= 300 hospital managers) prescribed by World Health Organization is modified and tested in the settings of hospitals of Pakistan. The data was analysed and presented using descriptive statistics, reliability analysis, Pearson Correlation analysis, t-test for independent samples, regression analysis. The results show that private hospitals (quality gap=4.88) are performing slightly better than public hospitals (quality gap= 5.87) in Peshawar based on patients’ perception but the difference is not statistically significant showing that both the sectors have quality gaps that need to overcome. Patients have not access to cost effective value of services particularly in public hospitals and even in private hospitals local people cannot afford.Further, it is found that leadership in hospitals at top and middle level need to advance the interventions as recommended by international standards in both the sectors to address the allied quality domains and to be globally competitive. The findings suggest continuous improvements using participation of patients’ feedback in the process of developing modern healthcare services with related facilities exclusively in public hospitals. Further, the value-added rewards and facilities to healthcare workforce can help to improve their responsiveness and empathetic attitude towards patients. Cost is recommended to be included as an isolated dimension of SERVQUAL instrument to measure the cost effective quality of healthcare services in the hospitals. Similar study is recommended in other cities of Pakistan to develop a homogenous healthcare system at national level.