Odysseus: A Lousy Leader

In the Epic poem,The Odyssey, Odysseus is portrayed as a great leader and hero. In the poem Odysseus is a brave and noble leader who fears nothing. He also is very intelligent, who knows how to get out of tough situations without hesitation. Odysseus, “The Great Sacker of Cities,” is a hero because he... because why? Odysseus demonstrates intelligence throughout.

The Odyssey Essay Final Draft Imagine, after fighting in a brutal war for 10 years, it takes you another 10 years to be able to return home to see your family. I will inform you about Odysseus, a bad leader, who sacrificed many men through his selfishness, arrogance, and dishonesty during his journey back home. In Homer The Odyssey, Odysseus is not a great leader because he is selfish. He hides with his men in Cyclops’s cave. This is selfish because his men wanted to leave and go home, but he is curious about the Cyclop instead of his men's safety.

Everyone knows the story of what came to be The Odyssey, but most do not realize that Odysseus is not what we call today a "jock with no brains''. The way that he able to "think on his toes" is what helps him become a strong leader. In the Cyclops, Odysseus was able to use his brains and bronze to escape the beastly Cyclops. Odysseus was also stuck with a decision, weather to take the path where they would have to inner come the man sucking, ship destroyer, Charybdis or thee huge-monstrous, Scylla. Odysseus was a strong leader and did everything he could to help his crew, because of the story the Cyclops and the story of The Sirens; Scylla and Charybdis.

In the Odyssey, Odysseus incited the story. Even though he lost his men in the end, he brought out the most important things in them: never give up. However, besides being a good leader, Odysseus made some bad choices in The Odyssey, and sometimes didn’t look like a good leader. Three areas/incidents where Odysseus was a poor leader was his extreme hubris, at the battle of Troy, and when he encounters Polyphemus. First off, Odysseus threw himself and his crew into bedlam with his hubris.

A good leader would have taken his men’s concerns into consideration. Odysseus is quick to decide that they should stay even if it meant potential danger. His quick and impractical decision eventually led to death among his men. This shows that he prioritizes himself over his men and is clearly selfish, a quality good leaders should not have. Another part of the adventure where this is portrayed is when Odysseus and his men are on Circe’s island.

Odysseus, the main character in “The Odyssey,” written by Homer. Odysseus’s character was shown greatly and had many tales of adventure. Odysseus was able to return to his wife at home with the help of the big relationships he made. Leadership, wisdom, and his relationship with athena were some important characteristics Odysseus showed. One of the strong characteristics that Odysseus showed was his leadership.

In order to be defined as a leader, one must be loyal, decisive and able to take the initiative. According to this definition, Odysseus does not fit the profile of a leader. For example, he is loyal to neither his wife nor crew. When Odysseus visited Circe, he disregarded his marriage to Penelope. By engaging in intercourse, he violated the trust of his wife while she remained loyal, despite the urges from the suitors.

However, examples within the literary narrative of the Odyssey leaves the discussion open with regards to his leadership. Thus, the question of leadership supersedes the topic of Arete. Was Odysseus the ideal leader or did he portray undesirable leadership tendencies? The examples that will presented will illustrate that Odysseus hubris, risk taking prowess, and at times unwillingness to follow instructions often placed his crew in danger as he journeyed Ithaca.

Dwight Eisenhower once said, "The supreme quality of leadership is integrity." Odysseus displayed a lack of integrity and poor leadership by not fully communicating all the facts of the situation

Ultimately Odysseus can be a good leader but behind the scenes, he's not. He may of saved his men multiple times, but also got them killed them due to his neglect. He might be intelligent but really he tolerably manipulated his crew by saying things such as “don’t you want to go back to your home again?”. In closing, throughout the whole story, Odysseus progresses himself and designates many Greek

Odysseus’s Leadership In Homer’s famous epic, The Odyssey, Odysseus, the protagonist who spends the book traveling home after the Trojan War while encountering different obstacles along the way, shows many different admirable qualities. He shows that he is prepared to sacrifice his life to be a good leader for his crew after his success in Troy, and not only wants to return home himself to his family, but also wants his crew to be able to do the same. Though some might argue that he is a flawed leader, his positive traits outnumber his understandable mistakes. Though some might argue that Odysseus shouting at Polyphemus, saying “Odysseus… took your eye:/ Laertes’s son, whose home’s on Ithaka” (9.551-9.552) was a sign of foolishness, he had a right to this anger, as Polyphemus had just devoured many of his friends.

In one of the oldest pieces of literature, The Odyssey written by Homer, Odysseus is a heroic and admirable commander that goes beyond his own duties to protect his men and return home to his beloved Ithaca. Although some readers think Odysseus is ignorant and a braggart, I believe he is a strong leader and an admirable wartime hero. Even though he is not flawless, Odysseus preservers through many obstacles and remains determined throughout the book. Odysseus has clearly shown both leadership and tactical thinking for instance when he devised a plan to escape the Cyclopes’ cave, respecting Elpenor’s dying wish, and slaying a stag to feed his men. Heroism and leadership can be defined in many different ways.

Homer was an ancient Greek writer best known for his book of epic poems The Odyssey. In The Odyssey, Odysseus is the protagonist who is meant to be the hero throughout the story; however, he does not display heroic qualities through his impulsive decisions, he is full of hubris, and displays terrible leadership. Throughout the whole journey, Odysseus makes impulsive decisions by never sticking to one plan. In the beginning, Odysseus and his men are stuck in a cyclops cave.

In the Odyssey “the Sirens” by Homer, Odysseus demonstrates his leadership skills and by devising a plan to hear the Sirens song without being tricked to stay on the island because he wants to keep himself and his men safe. Odysseus says to his men, “Dear friends, more than one man or two, should know those things Circe foresaw for us and shared with me, so let me tell her forecast”(975). Instead of withholding the information from his men, Odysseus tells them their fate. This shows Odysseus, as a leader, decided to tell his men what was going on at this time because he felt he trusted his men to follow the plan and help him. At other times in the story, Odysseus withholds information from his men as another tactic to essentially help them

In my opinion I think he was a heroic person, back at the chapter “Death in the Great Hall” He was disguised as a beggar and was able to string his own bow and shoot it thru the holes of the axes and revealed himself as Odysseus and killed all the suitors in his house and took back his land. Back when he was at the cyclopes island He blinded the cyclops and shouted his name and told the cyclops that he needs no one to help him. he is a powerful man, then, later on, he got cursed by most of the gods and he was to die, but that didn 't stop him.