A fair reading of Cuomo's quote yields nothing inconsistent with "having the wisdom to know your own limitations and placing the needs of others before yourself"-- your own definition of humility within the context of leadership.  You are nitpicking Cuomo's quote in a very partisan way.  Cuomo merely suggested that his judgment might be superior to popular opinion.  Maybe not every leader publicly admits that, but every leader worth his salt substitutes their own judgement for the judgment of popular opinion.  And even some leaders not worth their salt-- the "Decider" said basically the same thing as Cuomo, albeit in a far less articulate way ;-)

Besides, you clearly have very little problem with government paternalism-- so long as it's to support a policy of which you approve.  For example, here's a choice quote from the "Bossman":

Personally, I'd like to see that footage of the burning Twin Towers collapsing run on all the networks every single day!  Maybe then, it would outrage the American "sheeple" enough to demand that those 535 limp-wristed, panty-waist girly-men (and women) who supposedly represent us gather the moral courage to stand behind our President instead of undermining the mission and the troops at every turn!

Scott Perry, 9/12/2006

We see that the Bossman was fired up because the people-- or "sheeple", as the Bossman calls them when public opionion is not in line with his own-- weren't standing "behind" the president enough when the Iraq War was unpopular.  (Is "behind" somewhere near "below" or "beneath"?... not that Cuomo used those words)  He called Congress "limp-wristed panty-waist girly men" for no other reason I can see other than that they reflected popular opinion, which had turned against the Iraq War, and in particular, the leadership of the war effort, most notably the man the Bossman wanted everyone to stand behind.  So frustrated was Bossman that the public did not line up behind this elite leader, he suggested that he'd like to see the public exposed to some daily propaganda to bring public opinion around more to his liking! 

Talk about paternalism!

P.S.  I was not holding up Napoleon or Custer as great leaders-- an argument could be made either way on each I suppose, but it's beside the point, since I brought them up to counter your argument that leading up front somehow showed that Patton had great humility, not to argue that they were great leaders.