The article applies Nye’s conceptual proposal for the empirical comparison of the political leadership of Silvio Berlusconi and Viktor Orbán. Nye modified Burns’ (1978) concept of transactional and transformational leaders and differentiated between inspirational and transactional leadership styles. Supplementing Nye’s conceptual–theoretical framework, the article differentiates between leadership style, policy objectives and policy outcome. The empirical comparison highlights the different configurations of these three characteristics of leadership and justifies Nye’s conceptual innovation compared to Burns’ transformational leadership: the inspirational leadership style is not necessarily accompanied by transformational objectives and outcomes. While both Berlusconi and Orbán may be characterised by their inspirational leadership style, Berlusconi had more moderate, incremental policy objectives and achievements compared to Orbán’s transformational ones. The article also discusses the factors which might explain the differences in the two political leaders’ traits and effectiveness.