People usually think it is the self-assured and confident that emerge as the greatest leaders.

I'm surprised to find the opposite.

Most if not all were driven by severe insecurities, sometimes from physical deformities, unstable families and abusive childhoods.

They were monsters chasing their own demons e.g:

1. Stalin - deformed (webbed feet, one disabled shrivelled hand, pock marked face from small pox, short).

His biological father was in question, not the alcoholic cobbler who regularly beat him up.

It is said it was either the man who his mother worked for as the cleaner or one of his guests.

Stalin infamously called his mother an old whore when she was asked to plead for mercy for farmers he was killing off in the 1930s.

Stalin was also initially just a snitch for the Tsars and encouraged to masquerade as a revolutionary to join them and spy on them. Most of his comrades ended up being arrested apart from him! Always.

He also miraculously escaped 6 times and his official DoB was actually one..

... given to him to cover his identity i.e. he was born in 1978 but his cover birth date was put as 1979.

He killed most of his family, held his own mother in virtual house arrest and killed everyone who knew him in the past to cover his less than glorious past.

2. Hitler : his parentage was also in question and there was good reason to believe his real father was a Jew. His obsession like Stalin to erase them and thus his possible Jewish origin.

Like Stalin he had a difficult childhood and was initially a snitch against Nazis.

3. Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Although both sides of his family were super wealthy (Delanos were former slave owners and drug dealers in China, source of their wealth) his childhood was not ideal.

He was disabled in his adulthood with polio and felt driven to be president to..

... to dispel the insecurities that came with that. He is the only cripple who has been president in the US and only president who did so for 3 terms.

4. Napoleon: Very difficult childhood in Corsica (now part of Italy) which was brutally invaded by France....

Napoleon's father was a minor official in the French royal court and an infamous alcoholic. He was more of an embarrassment.

Napoleon hated his father and the French who had invaded their homeland, he also hated his school in France where he was mocked by French kids.

Physically his short height made Napoleon very self conscious about his looks and felt looked down upon. Yet another common trait of insecurity.

5. Tamerlane: Another cripple, this furious and brutal conqueror was merciless and is known for creating a monument of skulls of his victims.

Tamerlane was illiterate (couldn't read the Quran) and was very conscious about his illiteracy.

Tamerlane had a difficult childhood and survived by stealing and robbery when he grew older. He became a cripple when he was shot in the leg with a poisoned arrow when stealing as a child.

6. Genghis Khan: same script, his father was poisoned when he was very young and they were robbed of everything. Genghis was also enslaved by rival clan but escaped.

All throughout his childhood and teenage years he lived in danger and was always hunted along with his brothers.

7. Peter the Great: although born royal a revolt in his childhood left him badly shaken as the violence and the mob came to the palace.

His aunt who acted as regent as he was growing up, hated him and his life was always in danger.

When he rebelled and took power, he dragged

...her off to prison and killed off all those who had supported her reign. Peter the Great was always insecure throughout his life despite his physically imposing gigantic stature.

He also tortured and killed his son, whom he thought was becoming a rival for throne.

There are many other leaders with same insecurities:

1. Charles Mattel of Francia - illegitimate
2. Pepin the Short
3. Charlemagne - illiterate
4. Emperor Vespasian - poor donkey dealer
5. Julius Caesar - ashamed of his baldness, poverty
6. Winston Churchill - unhappy childhood

We can add to this list:
1. Jomo Kenyatta - grew up without a father and poor (hence his obsession with wealth)
2. Moi - grew up without a father, extreme poverty and was always conscious of his limited education (hence his obsession with schools)

3. Idi Amin - grew up without a father and a witchdoctor mother (not the most liked people in Kampala)

4. Saddam - no father, his mother didn't want him and hated him from birth, she said he killed off all males in his family before he was born! He was bundled off to his uncle

5. Museveni and Kagame were kicked out of Rwanda as children in the 1st Rwanda genocide (1959-1960). Grew up with impostor syndrome in UG.

They had to survive by being remorseless and pitiless.

Museveni's mothers affairs and husbands let us just say is something he and his brother Saleh have made an example of anyone who brought it up.

... and her unfortunate mental illness