The concept of some chords in 4/4 having a strong beat is called "harmonic stress". You can search this forum or Google for "harmonic stress for chords" to see more information about that.
Voice leading is a whole different concept, which it seems you may have a basic understanding of, and relates not so much to how chords themselves resolve but more specifically to how individual notes within those chords resolve.
Finally, you may want to learn more about diatonic chord function, which is I think where you will get the most bang for your buck in terms of understanding why chord "x" sounds good when following chord "y".
The idea of "how chords work" is kind of the basis for all music theory, and in Western music I would say it comprises about 80% of academic discussion about music. So it's something you can learn over time, but just to give you an idea it would take the average person about two years of committed self-practice or formal study to fully grasp the basics of harmony in Western music. You can start with learning about those three topics. Avoid Wikipedia and other high-level reference sites. Make sure you're looking at information that's your level. You're probably going to need to go back and make sure you really understand scales, intervals and chord construction before you can really understand how chords work together.
It's also important to understand that much formal discussion of music theory stems from academicians who focus either on classical theory or jazz theory, and yet most average people use similar and related but informal systems. To be quite blunt, I would suggest you not waste your time learning about CPE or classical tonal harmony right now, unless you are composing tonal/classical music. Just understanding scales, intervals, chord construction and chord analysis should be enough, and these basically overlap in all systems of music theory study so they're pretty accessible and very useful.
Good luck!