EN
To convince the followers to express the political support, the leaders apply some specific marketing strategies. In this paper I try to show, taking into account the cases of the leaders of the largest Polish cities, whether their public declarations were more symbolic (“imitating leaders’ behavior”) or more visionary (“promising that the leader can achieve the long-term goals with his/her followers”). I am focused on the three selected issues: a) the leaders’ attempts to create the community’s identity; b) the determinants of leadership efficiency (viewed by the leaders); c) the leaders’ ability to create a pattern of leadership. The main research method used in this work is the critical discourse analysis.