Top leaders are exemplary cases of noteworthy achievements in one or more fields of political activity. The category comprises party leaders, heads of governments, inspiring social leaders and so on. Our aim is not to sketch an icon of a person that overlooks one’s failures. Instead, we think that there are cases which are didactic in terms of the kind of challenges they dealt with, the policy outcomes they delivered, the levels of support they attracted or the extent of reforms they implemented. We tried to draw attention to leaders from different political systems in order to illustrate cases other than classic cases of leadership.