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In recent years, university sectors worldwide have undergone intense reforms under the influence of the global ideas of 'new public management' and 'new managerialism'. National policies have widely adopted global scripts with advocacy for strengthening academic leadership as the essential ingredient of successful university transformation. However, how direct is the link between the policy reforms and the changes in the composition of academic leaders? To provide insight into this question, we examined national policy changes in the formal procedure of rector selection from the election to the appointment and the consequences of these changes. We tested the specific hypothesis that the policy reform on the selection procedure has catalysed significant changes in rector leadership towards increasing (1) rector replacement in universities with weak performance, (2) external recruitment, (3) recruitment from the natural and life sciences and diminishing (4) academic credentials. The hypotheses were tested using data on the 136 rector replacements that have occurred in Russian public universities. The data show that, in general, strong support does not emerge from the top-management level to claim that a 'traditional' academic career pathway has been reduced in favour of a new type of leader more suited to strong leadership. We concluded that the national policy tends to adopt those elements of global ideas that provide local benefits. The leadership change not only enables the state to symbolically exhibit proper behaviour but also to strengthen control over public universities.