One of my favorite books is "The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior Is Almost Always Good Politics". This podcast interview with one of the co-authors provides a good summary (link here is Part 1 of 2). The principles nicely apply to democratically elected or corporate leaders as well.

The underlying assumption: every leader's main goal is to stay in power.

Based on that, the question is: who does the leader have principally please by investing time/money/energy in order to remain in power? In the context of a dictatorship it's generally the inner circle of cronies; in democracies this would generally include primarily swing states/districts/regions. The only real difference is the size of the group that must be pleased.

Of course this is a oversimplified summary but it captures the main point. As well, the co-author also takes a cynical, but well-argued and logical view of other topics such as foreign aid.

https://www.jordanharbinger.com/alastair-smith-the-dictators-handbook-part-one/