The theoretical and methodological aspects of studying the image of a political leader

There is currently no general methodological approach to the study of the image of the political leader in Russian social science. One of the main directions of contemporary Russian analysis of political leadership is associated with the analysis of the perception of political leaders. In the given work the actual definitions of the concepts «leader», «leadership», «political leader» are given, the concepts «image» and «image» are distinguished, the structure and factors influencing the image formation are considered, and some results of empirical research of regional political leadership are given.