They are striving to be role models, and they are role models for their followers, and this is clearly visible in changea in social interactions...
This is what we tell our children until they get old enough to process the adult world. Reality is... "it's complicated, ____ (son/daughter name here)." Our leaders (at least in the US) haven't been real role models for probably centuries... reality is the whole "virtuous king" thing has been aspirational since the ancient Greeks.
Even when I disagreed with some of what he did (and didn't do), I absolutely can't recall a single time that I didn't admire the manner in which Obama spoke and behaved.
You generally don’t hear someone screaming “with all due respect I must disagree” before shooting someone.