Role of monitoring node

Hi @TomF,
Based on your explanation, when primary is active it will always take the leadership since configuration allows to do it. Am I right?
Does messaging node own the leadership to be able to become ACTIVE and process the messages?
I have seen below combinations in logs:
When Primary is leader, voting requests from monitoring node and standby got rejected.
When stopped Primary, Secondary became leader and when primary is restored voting request from primary is rejected since secondary is already a leader.
In a particular situation, where monitoring node is started first and primary is started next and standby is down, monitoring node has become leader.
So, what does leadership indicate really here?

Thanks,
Raghu