Social leader with desire to be fashionable (5)
I believe the answer is:
swish
'fashionable' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'social leader with desire' is the wordplay.
'leader' suggests taking the first letters.
'with' says to put letters next to each other.
'desire' becomes 'wish' (wishing is a kind of desiring).
The initial letter of 'social' is 's'.
's'+'wish'='SWISH'
'to be' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for swish that I've seen before include "Elegant" , "Smart, fashionable" , "Impressively fashionable" , "Impressively smart" , "Stylish (sl.)" .)