Leader gave half of them coverage (7)
I believe the answer is:
empress
'leader' is the definition.
(type of imperial leader)
'half of them coverage' is the wordplay.
'half of' indicates taking half.
'coverage' becomes 'press' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'them' with half the letters taken is 'em'.
'em'+'press'='EMPRESS'
'gave' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for empress that I've seen before include "Catherine the Great, for example" , "Delilah?" , "Maria Theresa, perhaps" , "Female sovereign" , "Josephine, for instance" .)