In my opinion, I think it's because each one of us must take the responsibility to act as we expect a 'leader' to. We must be involved and represent the interests of our people when facing the outside world in as effective a way possible for each of us. I believe that many of the 'leaders' of the past were individuals who, due to circumstances, ended up involved in major events that required to use their resourcefulness to its fullest to meet the challenge. These people were also human beings, however, and history has a tendency to make them larger than life and make people feel afraid to take on any positions called 'leadership'. I also think it's important to watch out for those who WANT to BE leaders a little too much.
True leadership develops naturally.
It's up to them now. This goes back to the idea that we should all try to live up to the standards of what we expect out of our leaders. I think what Dan said contained excellent insight on this issue as well. Le Clercq described the situation among the Mi'kmaq tribe. A chief could attract followers, but they did what they pleased and were not subordinated to their leader's will, except perhaps to limited extent in time of war.