7thKeeper
Student

...we honor leaders for what they achieve, but we often prefer to close our eyes to the way they achieve it...

In the real world, politics is compromise and democracy is politics. Anyone who would be a statesman has to be a successful politician first. Also, a leader has to deal with people and nations as they are, not as they should be. As a result, the qualities required for leadership are not necessary those that we would want our children to emulate - unless we wanted them to be leaders.