fix: refined leaderelector lifecycle and logging

[shawkins]

Description

closes: #5635

This should clear up a couple of points of confusion brought up on that issue. We can treat a request to have the LeaderElector be reusable as a separate enhancement.

Type of change

• Bug fix (non-breaking change which fixes an issue)
• Feature (non-breaking change which adds functionality)
• Breaking change (fix or feature that would cause existing functionality to change
• Chore (non-breaking change which doesn't affect codebase;
  test, version modification, documentation, etc.)

Checklist

• Code contributed by me aligns with current project license: Apache 2.0
• I Added CHANGELOG entry regarding this change
• I have implemented unit tests to cover my changes
• I have added/updated the javadocs and other documentation accordingly
• No new bugs, code smells, etc. in SonarCloud report
• I tested my code in Kubernetes
• I tested my code in OpenShift

[sonarqubecloud]

Quality Gate failed

Failed conditions

60.0% Coverage on New Code (required ≥ 80%)

See analysis details on SonarCloud