'Strong winning' leader lets you be the biggest asshole you can possibly be. For some reason that works for the majority of people. 'Just following orders' has been proven to be the case time and time again, in experiments as well as in the real world.

That is true. And giving people power usually changes them - in a very negative way. I recall reading about an experiment that needed to be terminated early - because the people given power in the experiment became so cruel to those who were their good friends before the experiment began.