Seems like you are guaranteed to die. Is this just more of a movie thing? I'm guessing you are more ornately dressed and thus easily identifiable and more likely to be killed.
The general usually stands with his best troops who basically are expected to give their lives to protect him, and if failing that to retrieve his body.
But generals did die while leading from the front. King Cleombrotus of Sparta died on impact of their line with the Thebans at Leuctra. Pelopidas died leading an attack to prevent Alexander of Pherae from rallying his troops at Cynocephele. Epaminondas died was mortally wounded as his column routed the Spartans at Mantinea. And Alexander the Great almost got himself killed at Granicus. And those are just the more well known examples from ancient Greece.
Don't forget that most soldiers who are killed in battle (as opposed to by disease) die when their unit begins retreating or routing.
What ParallelPain says is true about some generals for sure as well, but if your side wins casualties might be pretty light on your side.
He give some examples of Greece and Greece works well for my point as well. The difference between loses on the Greek winning and losing side were typically larger than almost any other period.
Because of the difficult of maneuvering within the phalanx when one side broke and ran it was difficult for the men in the front ranks to extricate themselves from the combat.
Meanwhile the two sides are relatively well protected when facing each other so it was probably difficult to find a place to inflict a mortal wound on an enemy hoplite.
These generals who did enter the fray were defended by a personal guard comprised of their best fighters. Someone here already mentioned how Alexander The Great almost died at Granicus. He also almost died during the Mallian campaign where he took an arrow through his lung. Pyrrhus of Epirus died in Argos while in battle. Back then with how difficult it was to send orders across ranks of tens of thousands of men it was important for Commanders to be up close with their units. It also would boost the soldiers' morale to see their leader in the fray with them. As ParallelPain illustrated this has backfired in leading to the death of the leader but that's a risk that they take.
I know this isn't history but today you can see in current events pertaining to the Syrian Civil War, several high ranking soldiers of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard have died in Syria while serving on the front lines for the same reasons that the previous generals mentioned did.