meta query not retrieving posts

One problem here is that you have written post-type with a hyphen when it should be with an underscore, like this post_type.

So, this should get your post data back:

$args = array(
    'post_type' => 'leaders',
    'meta_query' => array(
        array(
            'key' => 'topics',
            'value' => '1773',
            'compare' => 'LIKE'
        )
    )
);

$test = get_posts( $args );