Leadership In The Odyssey

The adventures continue. In the beginning of this book, Odysseus returns to Aeaea and buries his friend, Elpenor, like he so persistently requested. He also returns in order to spend one last night with his sporadic lover, Circe. Throughout his visit, she informs him of the difficult challenges coming his way in his trip back home as well as how to paramount them. Setting sail, he shares her advice with his crewmates. Arriving at the home of the Sirens, flying creatures whose sweet songs would tantalize sailors onto rocks, Odysseus plugs everyone’s ears with beeswax as they bind him to the ship. This is exactly how Circe recommend their approach to be. While they sing their songs about how they can reveal the future, under their influence,
Similar to most Homeric heroes, Odysseus wants to obtain glory and recognition for his courageous deeds. Though he would often take it too far and become arrogant, confidence is hugely important in leadership. At certain times, however, he would pompously ignore someone’s advice or act how he wanted, regardless of the consequences of his choices. The best example of this is when he intentionally hollered back to the Cyclops who he was as he was leaving. The result of this is that he brought calamity on himself as well as his men due to the relationship that Poseidon and the Cyclops had. However, once he reaches Ithaca, the way he bides his time and disguises himself as a beggar shows how he has developed and changed. Instead, he could have simply rushed home and declared himself before the extremely hostile suitors (“change”). “He is not the same glory-hungry individual who often committed rash and rather vacuous actions in order to gain kudos(“change”).” More recently, the texts have proved that Odysseus has come a long way, learned a lot from past mistakes, and developed accordingly during the route of these