A new growth of interest in political leadership, dictated by the fusion of social and scientific reactions to the onset of a global crisis, requires both individuals adequate to overcome it, and bold, honest theoretical work to rethink the tools describing the subject field of leadership. Its paradoxes outlined in the article, both using examples of them in methodology and those that reflect the state of the phenomenon at the current stage, indicate a revision of the role of a number of categories that came to us from Western (American) political science. The paradoxes of leadership in combination with the principles of its modern integrative understanding, leading to the acceleration of the process of unification of Russian society and the state, confirm the priority of the sociological interpretation of the nature of political leadership. It makes it possible to achieve greater verifiability of conclusions about its legitimacy and effectiveness, the logic of actions/relationships of transformational leaders.