political leader vs politician

political leader and politician both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
political leader	Yes	No	No	No
politician	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, political leader and politician are synonyms defined as:

Other synonyms of political leader include pol, politico.

political leader (noun)	politician (noun)
a person active in party politics	a person active in party politics
	a leader engaged in civil administration
	a schemer who tries to gain advantage in an organization in sly or underhanded ways