The available empirical evidence suggests that contemporary globalisation is unsustainable in the long run unless we introduce new institutions and new applied policies which will deal with this global problem. The social order in which profit above all else" rules cannot be an efficient regulator of the balance between material growth and the natural resources of life. Thus a new direction of development is needed which will not repeat the mistakes of the old one. This new direction offers the concept of sustainable development which presupposes a considerable amount of social change and which has the character of a global societal social innovation. The two main pillars of sustainable development are "learning for sustainability" and "leading change towards sustainability". This article is dedicated to "leading towards sustainability" as a conscious and planned activity of democratically chosen political elites and other decision-making actors regarding the direction and modes of modern development. Leadership is by no means the dictatorship of the individual or cliques, a monopoly, or a type of "eco-fascism". In the article, the author considers the question of why sustainable development cannot be spontaneous, and why it has to be purposefully managed. Efficient leadership presupposes that the social actors of leading change towards sustainability have to internalise sustainability, life preservation and survival as the ultimate value and their special interest, and have to systematically "feed themselves with new knowledge". The production of social actors for leadership towards sustainability, a kind of "production of actors of sustainable future" is the most important task of modern education systems throughout the world.