When the communal and civic leaders of the generation grow haughty, the Holy One, blessed be He, sends people to take issue with them and speak out against them in order to keep them from becoming arrogant. This is as our Sages, of blessed memory, taught: We do not appoint a leader over the community unless he has a checkered background (Yoma 22b).

This is the explanation of the cryptic teaching brought in Etz Chaim, Shaar Arikh Anpin, Chapter 12 (p.197): Remove MaH from the backpart-of- MaH, PeH remains.

The explanation is as follows: On account of his checkered background, a person considers himself as MaH (what), and as nothing and naught. Yet when he removes MaH from himself, so that he no longer considers himself as “what” but grows haughty, PeH remains—that is, people open their peh (mouth) and say, “Turn around to what’s in back of you,” and they ridicule him. {Until here the lesson is leshon Rabbeinu z’l.}