The Belarus playmaker moved to St Andrews from Barcelona on a season-long loan deal over the summer but has so far failed to shine.
He has been hampered by a series of niggling injuries and is still short of full fitness after not being able to train regularly.
McLeish even left Hleb out of his starting line-up for the midweek 3-2 loss at Stoke and he remained on the substitutes' bench for the entire 90 minutes.
The Blues manager is confident the 29-year-old will come good but accepts it may take a bit more time.
"Alex knows he is a big-time player and there are high expectation levels on him," said McLeish.
"He has got a reputation to preserve but he is not fully fit. He is not 100 per cent. If Hleb was fully fit, we know he would be shrugging off the challenges on him.
"If we can get him top fit, we know that he will be a different player and a player who can make a difference. But I've got to do what is right for the team."
McLeish admits that Hleb has been playing catch-up since arriving on deadline day after being on the fringes at Barca.
"Alexander has been here 70 days and only trained for about 13," said the Scot.
"We have to get that statistic higher to make sure he is at a level where he is going to make a difference for this football club. It's just little niggles all over.
"The pre-season is crucial for players. If you don't get the right pre-season, the season can become a struggle for them.
"They can pick up niggles and Alex did not have much action pre-season at Barcelona.
"He said he did all the training but games-wise he didn't do much. He is about 12 games behind these guys here."
McLeish is not getting too worried at this stage about Birmingham's current position of 17th in the table but has urged his players to cut out recent mistakes.
Blues embarked on a 15-game unbeaten run this time last season and McLeish is looking for a similar spell of good form.
"Time will tell if we can do that sort of thing again but we've proved we can do it," McLeish said.
"We've got different personnel this season but we have proved we can do it so why not?
"Everyone panics, the doom and gloom merchants appear and start to talk about the negative side of things.
"I know the way people spin things to try and put on a wee bit of pressure. But we are used to that.
"I've been in the game a long, long time and we just have to keep cool, keep calm.
"There is no reason why we can't go on a good run in the middle or end of the season. We have got the players."
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