Behind all of this, is the narcissistic personality, who has high recognition needs.
A good place to get a good education on what motivates "leaders", politicians, managers and anyone in "power" is reading about Narcissism.
Narcissism is all about 'feeding' itself. Its not about truth, genuine helping or anything about the other. Its all about the person's needs for gratification and recognition and feeding the self.
Anyone in power needs to be viewed as possibly having narcissistic tendencies as this is where they, the narcissist, inevitably end up, in positions of power, moderation, etc etc etc.
Ofcourse this is not true for ALL, but there is a very high chance.