Abstract Background This research depicts the linkage of public leadership on public health delivery (PHD) and collaborative administration. The research is also focused to examine the effect of public leadership on public health delivery through the intervening variable of collaborative administration by using both social information processing theory and collaboration theory. Methods This research is based on quantitative method. Data was collected from 464 public hospital administration in the context of Pakistan. This study evaluated data using SPSS, AMOS, and PROCESS Macro. Results Public leadership has a positive profound effect on public health delivery and collaborative administration, and that collaborative administration significantly promotes public health delivery. The outcomes also exposed that public leadership has substantial influence on public health delivery through intervening collaborative administration. Conclusions Whilst public leadership demonstrated positive outcomes on public health delivery and collaborative administration, there is a need for more rigor studies on collaborative governance leadership, collaborative ethics and collaborative norms in the public health service.