People associate strong leadership with morality, in my experience. The initial decision is always seen as the moral one, irrespective if it is based on morality, and failing to actualize it to its full potential (often perceived) is associated with immorality. Failure -> bad -> immoral. Weakness -> bad -> immoral. Therefore anything invoking a feeling of negativity = immoral, content be damned. When a leader changes his stance, even when the decision is for the better, they see it as betrayal and weak leadership. I don't change my mind on anything just for this reason as a head of a family or back when I was in charge of large teams of people.