Former Scotland manager McLeish could not have wished for a better start when Mikael Forssell opened the scoring after only four minutes.
But Blues could not capitalise upon their impressive start against a Reading side which always threatened danger.
In a free-flowing game, Reading were gift-wrapped a point. Mat Sadler, back in favour under McLeish, found himself directly involved in a penalty incident which led to the Royals snatching a draw.
Sadler mis-timed his back-pass and Maik Taylor had little alternative but to lunge at Stephen Hunt and bring down Reading's danger-man.
The Irishman, who is playing a leading role in Reading's performances this season, duly slotted away his 51st minute penalty, sending the luckless Taylor the wrong way.
One of the few bonuses for McLeish, who declined to criticise his team, was the return of club skipper, Damien Johnson.
The Irishman made his first appearance of the season and came through with flying colours typical of his general approach to any match.
Blues produced a feast of football for the home fans with Cameron Jerome emerging as a big star of the future.
It was Jerome who knocked on Gary McSheffrey's corner to Forssell who was lurking at the far post and bundled the ball into the net for his third goal of the season.
It was only the second time this season that Jerome and Forssell had started a game and they certainly produced plenty of promising play.
Ibrahima Sonko never knew where to find Jerome and this put pressure on Reading keeper Marcus Hahnemann.
The American was a little suspect early on, his handling was far from secure but he later redeemed himself, particularly in the second period, with several fine saves.
He kept out Jerome's flying header and then dived to his right to keep out Seb Larsson's free-kick.
As a result Reading were quite happy with the outcome, while McLeish obviously needs to sort out some defensive problems.
But Blues wasted a good opportunity to improve their precarious league position and they now face a difficult winter with three successive games against Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea in January.