great leaders, who are your favorites?

Cathal Brugha is one of history's "Ultimate Patriots."

Margaret Thatcher. Caesar. Augustus. Nero. Hadrian. I've left out my controversial picks.

You like it, the authoritarians?

Yes. And I've mostly chosen ones distant enough to avoid offending your delicate sensibilities.

Nero was nothing more than a poor misguided kid manipulated by the ruthless Roman political system. Far from a "great" leader. Or even a "pretty good" leader.

I always had a soft spot for Gystav Adolf II. His advisor, Axel Oxenstierna, wasn't bad either.

But personally, when it comes to dictators, the only good dictatorship is the one where I'm in charge.

Based on what I read in '48 Laws of Power,' Louis XIV seemed like a pretty cool cat.

Washington
Churchill
Teddy Roosevelt
Polk - quite the Machiavellian
Robert E. Lee - before the war began he predicted almost exactly how it would go, thought the war was necessary as "expatiation for our national sins" (slavery), and still went and fought the war.
John D. Rockefeller - Sam Walton before Sam Walton.
Ernest Shackleton
Haile Selassie
Hernando DeSoto (leading (albeit unsuccessfully) a group of starving Euros through the virgin Florida swamps amazes me)
Martin Luther
Martin Luther King

These are right on the money and correspond almost exactly to my first reaction to the OP. The others on your list I don't know so much about. I would also add Abraham Lincoln I'm sure I'm forgetting a bunch whom I admire.

Lee was complex. He was certainly a gifted soldier. He was also a product of his time. He'd have been viewed differently if he'd accepted Lincoln's offer to lead the US Army. At the end of the war, he was nearly solely responsible for stopping other Southerners from extending the war through guerrilla means. I think that there's a fair argument that this doesn't absolve him from his responsibility in it, however. I respect Lee generally, but he also has a lot to answer for.

Ghandi

I'll add more later.

Somerled Macgilbred, or in Norse, Sumarlidi Höld

One for Conne: Brian Boru

ghandi
martin luther king

We can't mention Gandhi and MLK Jr, w/o mentioning their leader, Jesus. They led not by violent power so much as by wisdom and love: transforming hearts and minds so that others might choose freely to follow their way. I'm not a pacifist, but if I've learned anything from martial arts, it's the old saying: The better you are, the less you have to use it.

mugabe
amin
the shah of iran
stalin
bismark