Supreme leader

• Adolf Hitler in Germany
• Benito Mussolini in Italy
• Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union
• Supreme leader of North Korea
• Paramount leader of China
• Supreme leader of Iran

  List of titles

1920s and earlier

• Benito Mussolini, dictator of Fascist Italy from 1922 to 1943, was known as Duce.
• Adolf Hitler, dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, was known as Führer.
• Emperor Hirohito, emperor of Imperial Japan from 1926 to 1947 and of State of Japan from 1947 to 1989.
• Antanas Smetona, the authoritarian president of Lithuania, adopted the title of Tautos Vadas.
• Karlis Ulmanis, the authoritarian president of Latvia, adopted the title of Tautas Vadonis and Nācijas Tēvs.
• Getúlio Vargas, dictator of Brazil, named in his era since 1930 as "Supreme Leader of Revolution".
• Francisco Franco, dictator of Francoist Spain, assumed the title Caudillo, originally an honorary title for an army leader.
• Ioannis Metaxas, Greek dictator during the 4th of August Regime from 1936 until his death in 1941, assumed the title of Αρχηγός meaning "The Leader".
• Chiang Kai-shek, de facto leader of Kuomintang Republic of China, was sometimes referred as 領袖
• Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, decreed that he was to be officially designated as Вождь from his fiftieth birthday in 1929.
• Rafael Trujillo, Dominican dictator from 1930 to 1961, assumed the nickname of "El Jefe".
• Birger Furugård, leader of the Swedish National Socialist Party had the title of Riksledaren.
• Subhas Chandra Bose, an Indian revolutionary in the Indian independence movement, was known as Netaji.
• Engelbert Dollfuss and Kurt Schuschnigg, austrofascist leaders of Austria from 1933 to 1938, were referred to as Bundesführer as heads of the Patriotic Front.

  World War II

• Ante Pavelić, as dictator of the Independent State of Croatia, named himself Poglavnik.
• Ferenc Szálasi, as dictator of the Hungarian State, named himself Nemzetvezető.
• Josef Tiso, President of the First Slovak Republic, named himself Vodca in 1942.
• Ion Antonescu, as Prime Minister of Romania during most of World War II, named himself Conducător.
• Vidkun Quisling, leader of Nasjonal Samling and from 1942 Minister-President of the nominal Quisling regime, named himself Fører.
• Frits Clausen, leader of the National Socialist Workers' Party of Denmark, had the title of Fører.
• Anton Mussert, leader of the National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands, was allowed to use the title Leider van het Nederlandsche Volk by the Germans in 1942.
• Léon Degrelle, leader of the Rexist Party, was named Chef-du-People-Wallon in December 1944.
• Jef van de Wiele, leader of the DeVlag party, was named Landsleider van het Vlaamsche Volk in December 1944.
• Staf de Clercq, co-founder and leader of the Flemish nationalist Vlaamsch Nationaal Verbond, was referred to as den Leider by his followers.
• Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists, was known as "The Leader".

  Cold War era

• Mao Zedong, the first Chairman of the Communist Party of China, officially named 伟大领袖毛主席.
• Deng Xiaoping, the supreme leader of the People's Republic of China and Chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Communist Party of China, officially named "The chief architect of China's reform opening and modernization drive".
• Kim Il Sung, the first head of state of North Korea, is officially referred to by the North Korean government as 위대한 수령.
• Ho Chi Minh, the only one Chairman of the Communist Party of Vietnam.
• Liaquat Ali Khan, the first Prime Minister of independent Pakistan was named as Quaid-i-Millat and Shaheed-i-Millat.
• Sukarno, the president of post-revolution Indonesia was known as the Pemimpin Besar Revolusi and Bung Karno.
• François Duvalier, the president-dictator of Haiti, obtained from the pocket parliament "Supreme Leader of Revolution" amongst other titles.
• Ferdinand Marcos, the president-dictator of the Philippines, sometimes named as Pinuno ng Bansa "Leader of Nation".
• Fidel Castro, the communist ex-president of Cuba was known as the Máximo Líder.
• Enver Hoxha, the communist president of Albania was named as "The Leader", "Supreme Comrade", "Sole Force", "Great Teacher".
• Nicolae Ceaușescu, the communist leader of Romania from 1965 to 1989, also adopted the title Conducător.
• Mobutu Sese Seko, the president-dictator of Zaire, sometimes named as "Father of People" and "Saver of Nation".
• Alfredo Stroessner, the dictatorial president of Paraguay from 1954 to 1989, was eulogized as Gran Líder and Único Líder.
• Abd al-Karim Qasim, Prime Minister of Iraq from 1958 to 1963, named as al-za‘īm.
• Saddam Hussein, the president-dictator of Iraq from 1979 to 2003, named as "The Leader".
• Muammar Gaddafi, the Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution of Libya from 1979 to 2011.
• Omar Torrijos, de facto dictator of Panama from 1968 to 1981, assumed the title Líder Máximo de la Revolución Panameña.
• Dési Bouterse, de facto leader of Suriname during 1980 military rule
• The Supreme Leader of Iran, the highest-ranking political and religious authority in the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The first person to hold this title was the Ayatollah Khomeini
• Pol Pot was the dictator of Kampuchea

  Post–Cold War era

• Hugo Chávez, former President of Venezuela, was called El Comandante by some people during his reign.
• Xi Jinping, current General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, has been officially recognized as lingxiu, a reverential term for "leader", by the Party Politburo.
• Kim Jong-Il, former General Secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea, is officially referred to by the North Korean government as 친애하는 지도자 and "The Leader".
• Kim Jong-Un, current Chairman of the Workers’ Party of Korea, was made "Supreme Guide" after his father Kim Jong-Il died in 2011.
• Ali Khamenei, current Supreme Leader of Iran since 4 June 1989.
• Nursultan Nazarbayev, since 1991 the Chairman of the Security Council of Kazakhstan, and first President of Kazakhstan, was granted the title Елбасы by a parliamentary decision in 2010.
• Saparmurat Niyazov, president of Turkmenistan in 1990—2006, was referred by his self-given titles Serdar and Türkmenbaşy. His successor Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow carries the title Arkadag.
• Nawaz Sharif, ex-prime minister of Pakistan, was made the Supreme Leader of his political party PML-N after the Pakistan Supreme Court ruled that as he was disqualified under the constitution for dishonesty, he can no longer serve as the head of a political party.