The focus in this paper is on the leadership of higher education institutions (HEI) in Finland and more specifically on the rector's leadership. The higher education sector is undergoing many changes and has been so for a long time. How, then, do the current changes become visible from a leadership perspective? The leadership discourse is here investigated by analysing interviews with serving rectors. The aim is to describe the leadership discourse with the help of the occurring identity constructions. Against this background the main research question is: What characterises Finnish HEI leaders' identity constructions through negotiations of leader identity in times of changing structures and legislation? From the findings one can see that the current HEI leadership discourse is characterised by strategising, multi-tasking, communication, people-focus and lobbying.