The rather strict rules of voice-leading as we might first be
taught aren't meant to summarize the art. They are to be taken
as a spring-board into a greater but harder to define
understanding of music. It looks like you've had enough of those
beginning exercises in simple 4-part homophonic part-writing.
Those patterns and "rules" of voice leading that we might be
taught are supposed to be easier to apply and understand than
the broader principles of actual practice. Composers don't
always resolve tendency tones and might use more skips than your
instructor would have preferred in an intro to voice leading
class. But tendency tones are called tendency tones for a
reason, and skips reduce our ability to hear the integrity of a
voice, so they are solid concepts to understand, for example.
Most generally, voice-leading is just the way voices move about
in a piece. Usually, good voice leading means that each voice
feels smooth, atleast somewhat independent, at least somewhat
interesting, and supportive of the bac