As the practice of contemporary life shows, the competition for leadership in higher education is increasingly intensifying. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the competition took place at the level of national higher education systems. In turn, the beginning of the twenty-first century, thanks to IT achievements, elevated this competition to a global level. This research aims to analyze the transformation of criteria for assessing university leadership in the era of digital technologies. Additionally, the authors emphasize the impact of international rankings on traditional criteria for determining leading universities in Russia. The methodological foundation is the theory of leadership and the theory of network methodology. Based on the analysis of the values of three models of universities (the Humboldtian, the market-oriented, and the digital), the authors illustrated the shifts occurring in the criteria for assessing university leadership. The authors analyzed the socio-cultural influence on the global system of leadership assessment in international and national ranking databases. In connection with the escalation of international relations related to sanctions imposed by the international community on various areas of life, including education, Russia has decided to build its own higher education system. However, Russia's participation in the Bologna Process has brought about certain transformations in the national higher education system. [For the complete volume, "University 4.0 and Educational Technology for Sustainable Development: Best Practices and Perspectives in Russia and Central Asia. Education in the Asia-Pacific Region: Issues, Concerns and Prospects. Volume 75," see ED675741.]