diff --git a/ratis-docs/src/site/markdown/configurations.md b/ratis-docs/src/site/markdown/configurations.md
index acd1cb9f9e..8cc7f1453b 100644
--- a/ratis-docs/src/site/markdown/configurations.md
+++ b/ratis-docs/src/site/markdown/configurations.md
@@ -227,6 +227,29 @@ if it fails to receive any RPC responses from this peer within this specified ti
 | **Default**     | false                                                                 |
 
 
+| **Property**    | `raft.server.read.read-index.heartbeat.skip.enabled`                |
+|:----------------|:--------------------------------------------------------------------|
+| **Description** | whether to skip the leadership check heartbeat for read index.      |
+| **Type**        | boolean                                                             |
+| **Default**     | false                                                               |
+
+Note that although enabling `heartbeat.skip.enabled` reduce the RTT due to the leadership check heartbeat, 
+it causes reads to not be linearizable in some cases. 
+This is because without the leadership check heartbeats, the leader might not be the latest leader 
+and might serve stale reads. 
+There might be a small period of time when there is a split brain and two Raft peers that believe that 
+they are leaders (old leader and new leader where old leader's term < new leader's term). 
+The old leader might not have detected that it has lost majority heartbeats and stepped down or the old leader 
+has not received any RPC with higher term which forces the old leader to steps down. 
+Without the leadership check heartbeat which should detect that the old leader is no longer the latest leader and
+force the old leader to step down, the old leader ReadIndex might return an index that is lower than 
+the new leader's applied index. 
+This means that the old leader might return stale data which is not linearizable by definition. 
+However, this situation should happen only abnormal situations when the Raft group encounters a leader election
+due to network partition between the old leader and the other majority quorum (which will elect a new leader).
+Therefore, this might be an acceptable tradeoff for applications that seek to improve the linearizable read 
+performance.
+
 ### Write - Configurations related to write requests.
 
 * Limits on pending write requests
diff --git a/ratis-server-api/src/main/java/org/apache/ratis/server/RaftServerConfigKeys.java b/ratis-server-api/src/main/java/org/apache/ratis/server/RaftServerConfigKeys.java
index 2538a472a8..8f08989545 100644
--- a/ratis-server-api/src/main/java/org/apache/ratis/server/RaftServerConfigKeys.java
+++ b/ratis-server-api/src/main/java/org/apache/ratis/server/RaftServerConfigKeys.java
@@ -279,6 +279,17 @@ static boolean appliedIndexEnabled(RaftProperties properties) {
       static void setAppliedIndexEnabled(RaftProperties properties, boolean enabled) {
         setBoolean(properties::setBoolean, APPLIED_INDEX_ENABLED_KEY, enabled);
       }
+
+      String HEARTBEAT_SKIP_ENABLED_KEY = PREFIX + ".heartbeat.skip.enabled";
+      boolean HEARTBEAT_SKIP_ENABLED_DEFAULT = false;
+      static boolean heartbeatSkipEnabled(RaftProperties properties) {
+        return getBoolean(properties::getBoolean, HEARTBEAT_SKIP_ENABLED_KEY,
+            HEARTBEAT_SKIP_ENABLED_DEFAULT, getDefaultLog());
+      }
+
+      static void setHeartbeatSkipEnabled(RaftProperties properties, boolean enabled) {
+        setBoolean(properties::setBoolean, HEARTBEAT_SKIP_ENABLED_KEY, enabled);
+      }
     }
   }
 
diff --git a/ratis-server/src/main/java/org/apache/ratis/server/impl/LeaderStateImpl.java b/ratis-server/src/main/java/org/apache/ratis/server/impl/LeaderStateImpl.java
index 90d0b76df5..a49e7fb333 100644
--- a/ratis-server/src/main/java/org/apache/ratis/server/impl/LeaderStateImpl.java
+++ b/ratis-server/src/main/java/org/apache/ratis/server/impl/LeaderStateImpl.java
@@ -354,6 +354,7 @@ boolean isApplied() {
 
   private final ReadIndexHeartbeats readIndexHeartbeats;
   private final boolean readIndexAppliedIndexEnabled;
+  private final boolean readIndexHeartbeatSkipEnabled;
   private final LeaderLease lease;
 
   LeaderStateImpl(RaftServerImpl server) {
@@ -392,6 +393,8 @@ boolean isApplied() {
     }
     this.readIndexAppliedIndexEnabled = RaftServerConfigKeys.Read.ReadIndex
         .appliedIndexEnabled(properties);
+    this.readIndexHeartbeatSkipEnabled = RaftServerConfigKeys.Read.ReadIndex
+        .heartbeatSkipEnabled(properties);
 
     final RaftConfigurationImpl conf = state.getRaftConf();
     Collection<RaftPeer> others = conf.getOtherPeers(server.getId());
@@ -1166,7 +1169,8 @@ CompletableFuture<Long> getReadIndex(Long readAfterWriteConsistentIndex) {
     }
 
     // if lease is enabled, check lease first
-    if (hasLease()) {
+    // if we allow leader to skip the leadership check heartbeat, we can return immediately
+    if (readIndexHeartbeatSkipEnabled || hasLease()) {
       return CompletableFuture.completedFuture(readIndex);
     }