The problem is that a great amount of people across countries and cultures fall for these narcissistic, autocratic personalities. It's part of human nature. However, as you point out the key is in building the institutions, and those institutions cannot be dependent on a particular person. These institutions should be able to withstand political changes at the top and function no matter who is in power.

The problem in Russia is that Putin has successfully tapped into sentiments of grievances that some Russians were harboring, channelled it into appearing as the only person who can solve these issues, and then fortified it into personal control of the state. The level of propaganda (and repression) you now see is probably even worse than what you had in the USSR post-Stalin. It's exactly for this reason why I see politics based on grievances as dangerous, especially if it is mixed in with identitarian issues.

How do we end it? Well, this will be hard. Putin is firmly in control, and with the way things are in Russia now, any potential successor would come from the siloviky anyways. The best way probably would be for Putin to be utterly defeated in Ukraine. He can't come out from his war in Ukraine with any "face saved". The Russians need to see utter failure, and Putinism needs to be utterly discredited. That's the only way forward.