Evolution acts slowly. Our psychological characteristics today are those that promoted reproductive success in the ancestral environment.
Humans have evolved to be exquisitely sensitive to changes in status.
Lie detection is like language; there is a learning window. Telling whoppers to small children seems to be a family tradition in many families.
High status males had multiple wives or additional mating opportunities in the ancestral environment.
Successful cult memes induce intense social interaction behaviour between cult members. This trips the attention detectors.
As for leadership, I am the kind who leads reluctantly and more by example than anything else. Someone had to be on the incorporation papers as president.
Cults, or related social movements such as the Taliban in Afghanistan, result in massive military expenses.
