For people who claim to not wish to be governed by elites, both the current and the mid-last-century "populists" certainly seem eager to follow leaders!
The "Ruler vs. Leader" is like Slide #3 on any leadership talk, behind the title and the rhetorical "[Subject Here]: Art or Science?". Those who've never sat through such a thing have likely seen it on LinkedIn twice a day. [1]
You're right that by leader I mean more "ruler" in the biz-self-help context, but I would suggest anytime people are buying articles of clothing all in the same colour (compare Wodehouse's "Black Shorts" movement) it's obvious what they are doing, no matter what word we use to describe the person who is the focal point.
Seeing it now, Thomas Hobbes spent about two volumes on the same story
and gave us the "social contract". The log is the social safety
net. The snake is the ever present threat of violence, "at our own
request and for our own good".
Marius and Caesar were populists. Having leaders (who are frequently themselves of the elite class) is almost a prerequisite, or else you've drifted into anarchism.
They were demagogues and elitists (and dictators, actually literally).
They made promises they knew couldn't be fulfilled or without nefarious consequences to the Republic.
They made exalted ridiculous promises to the public as an excuse to acquire more power for themselves. At the other end of the spectrum, Populism seeks to directly distribute power.
When using the phrase 'elites', are we talking 'coastal elites' (that is, the actual majority of the US population, who live in coastal cities), 'globalist elites' (that is, imaginary secret evil communists who are actually imaginary secret evil Jews), or something else?
cf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Frogs_Who_Desired_a_King