Energy is contagious. It passes from person to person and can evolve and develop itself into a system, a collective energy. This happens with both positive and negative energy. Personal leadership has a decisive role in this because it can create the conditions in which negative energy is liberated and positively directed.
In the end, it is Fear and Love. The energy varies. It can manifest in many different forms, which also makes it difficult to recognise. Fear can disguise itself. Then we don't notice it. However, the energy of fear can infect you. That is different from the energy of love, which can touch you softly. Love, like Fear, is contagious. Both deliver something different. One hardens, the other softens.
Personal leadership is characterised by the ability to feel from moment to moment what energy you are encountering; in yourself and in the other person... Is it Fear or is it Love? Awareness creates the choice to be guided by the latter. Then the negative energy can dissolve and merge into something positive.
Personal leadership is something you can develop.