As I recall (and I confess it's been a while), Machiavelli posited that to be feared was preferable. I don't remember his precise reason, though I'm absolutely certain it was Machiavellian (see what I did there?). Those who know me probably won't be surprised that I disagree with his assessment. It occurs to me, though, that to be loved, and to lead people who follow you because they love you, isn't really that much better. It's somewhat better, of course, by the mere fact that it feels better (generally speaking) to experience love than it does to experience fear; and thus it's a decent thing to do to inspire the better-feeling love.
But if you're a leader, and your followers follow you because they love you, it's still a manipulation. You're still using others to achieve your own aims, and that's not leadership, quite. Leadership at its best is simply providing structure, support, and direction to a group in service of achieving a commonly-held goal. In this understanding of leadership, to be the leader is not to be the best, or the most worthy, it's not even to be first among equals. It's merely serving one of the roles that any group needs if it is to cohere as a group and to achieve certain things. Not all groups even need leaders, and goals are certainly accomplished without them, though it tends to be messy.
To modernize Machiavelli a little bit, and contextualize his work to our own system of government, consider the President of the United States. Is President Obama the best American citizen? Is he the most worthy among us? Is he the most important? In a word, no. President Obama would just be a dude with ears that stick out if he didn't have a country to lead, if he didn't have us. It's his job to steer the country towards our common goal. What is that common goal? Give me a second, it's here somewhere...ah, yes:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
To the extent that I am or may become a leader, I aspire to remember to be the kind of leader who remains aware that, at the heart of it, I am a servant.