Authors in this article present the findings of the second stage of the research project on the leadership and the ethnopolitics in Tatarstan. From the chronological and problematic perspective they analyze the transformation of the model of leadership in the republic. Much attention has been paid to the relationship between the format of leadership of the following presidents and their styles of doing politics. On the basis of the analysis the authors come to the conclusion that ethnocratism, which in Tatatarstan has been an important source of the political leadership of the leader and the local elite, seems to lose its ability to adapt and create and generates more and more dysfunction and pathology. Moderate policy of ethnopolitisation and Islamisation promoted by the leader and ethnoelite, which can be perceived as a major justification for its power in relations with the federal center, is being challenged by many social groups. The evidence of this tendency is inter alia the increase of the inter-ethnic tensions and progressive Islamisation of political life in the republic.