Asklemmy

And because they must look good to the majority that may be not versed enough to understand what is better long-term

I disagree. I dont disagree this is true but i dont think its the main reason for poor leadership. I think that has more to do with greed and power politics. Incredibly powerful people and groups (billionaires, superpacs, other politicians) largely choose who gets put in significant leadership positions. They'll put in people who will "play the game" and made token appeals to the masses but largely work towards the interests of themselves and their donors/people pulling the strings.

Its not that theyre afraid to make unpopular decisions as much as they dont really care, because people who do care seldom get into those positions

I believe this is the one disadvantage democracy has over authoritarianism. While China invests and plans for decades, the US plans for the next election cycle. However, authoritarian governments can provide long term, consistent leadership, but their goals tend to drift away from the needs of the larger population to either narcissistic grandiose delusions (such as the great leap forward) or the needs of the few.

I personally see it in terms of risk management. Yes, absolute power would be beneficial if used well, but it rarely is. Democracy reduces the risk of incompetent or misguided leadership. Spreading power out over a larger group with more diverse perspectives prevents blind spots to potential failure. Having multiple parties that have to form a coalition encourages cooperation and discourages extreme behavior.

The 2 party system fails in both regards, it only provides 2 options and therefore reduces the talent pool which harms the potential the quality of the candidates while also increasing risk.

A concrete example is Lemmy itself, the many instances all have their own leadership and the risk of their actions are spread out. When an instance forgets to renew their SSL certificate, others still remain functional. The federated networks almost act as a coalition, except for the fact that multiple approaches are possible on each federated network. When an instance is too strict or has too little moderation, it is defederated by others. The model encourages cooperation and moderates behavior.

Idk. Business leadership typically does take actions its employees don't like if it helps the owners/shareholders. I often hear politicians/policymakers argue for things that will "hurt" (austerity, increasing unemployment to lower inflation, phasing out social security, war, opposing UBI, opposing universal healthcare, etc). I guess not all of those are extremely unpopular, but that's mostly because people have been convinced they're needed. The right, in particular, seems focused on things like sacrifice and punishment.