Most of the time people have a different set of standards for a leader than for themselves. They won’t admit it, but that’s the case, because not everyone is a leader. Comparing social political situations of different regions of the world we can see that almost all leaders are corrupt. However, these leaders got elected on a platform of moral and ethical principles for action, and people elect these leaders hoping they will help improve their lives. However, the same people have very minimum standards among themselves. In a way they are choosing a leader whom they can later blame for the failures in their lives.
It is erroneous to think that a leader is someone who will move against the status quo, especially political leaders. A leader has same qualities and failings as any other human being. If citizens behave irrationally or in a self destructive manner, then they would readily elect such an irrational self-destructive leader.
Some visionary leaders might rise however their solutions are opposite to the majority can either leave that region and form a different society, or perish as there is no point in trying to fix a system which is beyond repair. Leaders can only take advantage of the current environment, of peoples’ social, economic and political behavior. However, a leader will always present a solution contrary to the current economic conditions to get represented as part of the community, as people expect him to solve their problems where as they themselves are not conducting their own economic behavior in that way.
Also a majority of people, once given certain benefits they don't have to work for, i.e. free loans, welfare programs, etc., will take advantage of the system and further elect those leaders that support even more such benefits, all of which come from people who must work to create them. This becomes a vicious cycle for genuine leaders also to fix such problems.
Lets take example the case of India:
Case 1: A fish street vendor do not weigh them properly in india and when the customers object by bringing his own weighing machine they deny to sell at the same rate. And they use their own union to intimidate the customers.
Case 2: Auto rikshaws or small cabs in India has unions and if. a new auto rikshaw wants to provide cheaper serve they will be severely beaten by the union thugs.
Case 4: Majority of street vendors dont advertise the prices, this is because these vendors wants to con different people based on the customers status, local or not, etc.
Case 3: SC/STs and women gets lot of free lands, reservations in public sector with low bar quality. Because of this these groups abuse the system. Also some of these groups get free loans like farmers which government says it helps the poor however, basically either taking loans thus devaluing the currency or robbing the productive population in the form of taxes.
Case 5: Majority of the indians throw garbage on the streets without thinking its their responsibility to keep things clean.
These are some of the few mundane things indians are corrupt at. Since from this corruption some leaders rise however, they will be no different.
Solution:
Real solutions to problems must come from the bottom up, rather than from the top down. This expectation of finding a leader different than people generally is erroneous to start with, and will lead to massive disillusion. Whenever the problem becomes gargantuan, then the pendulum swings to the other extreme, which has the same effect as the original conditional extreme. Stop asking leaders to change your situation when in fact you are the one that must change. A society can only be good when people help the government and not the otherway around.