Was Odysseus a Good Leader? (Literature Essay)

Was Odysseus a Good Leader?

(A Literature Essay on The Odyssey by Homer)

Written by V.K. ~ Hividah

"'Nobody—that's my name. Nobody—so my mother and father called me, all my friends.'" ~Book 9 (page 223, lines 410–411)

An image of a typical Greek ship. Source: etc.usf.edu

Note: The book referenced throughout this was The Odyssey by Homer, Translated by Robert Fagles.

Odysseus: A Proclaimed Hero

In the few thousand-year-old epic poem, The Odyssey, we follow a man named Odysseus, son of Laertes, who goes on a perilous journey to return to his home in Ithaca, Greece, after becoming a hero in the Trojan War. He overcomes many obstacles and setbacks that cause his journey home to take twenty years. Owing to his brave actions in the Trojan War, Odysseus was known as a "king" and a great leader. But if he was such an acclaimed hero, how come he lost his entire army on the return trip home?

What Makes a Great Leader?

Leadership is the act of leading a group or an organization. A leader is an idol, one who inspires others to follow. A leader is someone persuasive and able to gain the respect of others. But to lead well, they need to have experience in the different aspects of life and have gained wisdom from the mistakes they have made. Only with that knowledge can they make the best decisions. They need to be open to the opinions of others and listen to what everyone has to say. The most valued quality of a true leader is honesty: they don't make empty promises to the people who put their faith and trust in them. Lastly, a leader should not make themselves more important than they are. Their priority should lie with their people and not in their image of self-importance.

Odysseus is not the definition of a good leader.

Being too much of a hubristic risk-taker, I would say Odysseus was not a good leader. First of all, he was boastful and thought too highly of himself. The most striking example is in Book 9 (page 227, lines 558–562). "I called back with another burst of anger, 'Cyclops—if any man on the face of the earth should ask you who blinded you, shamed you so—say, Odysseus, raider of cities, he gouged out your eye, Laertes' son who makes his home in Ithaca!'"  If he had not decided to invade the home of Polyphemus the Cyclops (the son of Poseidon), he would not have needed to seek revenge for the brutal murder of some of his best soldiers. His plan to blind the Cyclops and escape with his sheep was clever, yes, but his pride in shouting out his true name was perhaps the biggest mistake he ever made. In Book 9 (page 228, lines 585–597), Polyphemus cries out in rage: "'Hear me—Poseidon, god of the sea-blue mane who rocks the earth! If I really am your son and you claim to be my father—come, grant that Odysseus, raider of cities, Laertes' son who makes his home in Ithaca, never reaches home. Or if he's fated to see his people once again and reach his well-built house and his own native country, let him come home late alone in a stranger's ship—and let him find a world of pain at home!' So he prayed, and the god of the sea-blue mane, Poseidon, heard his prayer."  So, Poseidon put a curse on Odysseus, which ended up costing him lots of pain and brought on the death of his entire crew, as well as taking him two decades to finally reach home.

My other point is that he was greedy, which often led him to unnecessarily raid cities, such as the Cicone's stronghold in Book 9 (page 212, lines 45–49). "There I sacked the city, killed the men, but as for the wives and plunder, that rich haul we dragged away from the place—we shared it round so no one, not on my account, would go deprived of his fair share of spoils."  In turn, the Cicones gathered backup and launched an attack on him and his crew. Odysseus managed to escape but with the loss of six of his men. This is just one notable example. His greed was a great weakness and caused him to also lose precious time. While they needed to collect new resources on the journey home, his desire for luxuries caused him to stray off course on several occasions. This is shown in Book 10 (page 245, lines 513–517) when they met Queen Circe of Aeaea. "So she enticed and won our battle-hardened spirits over. And there we sat at ease, day in, day out, till a year had run its course, feasting on sides of meat and drafts of heady wine..." They could have stayed a few weeks, perhaps two months, but Odysseus had no intention of leaving the luxuries that Circe provided until his men reminded him of their original course.

Odysseus' Few Leadership Qualities…

Now, some might disagree and say that he was compassionate and cared about his crew members. It hurt him deeply every time one of his men died, such as Elpenor at Queen Circe’s Palace. But if he truly cared about the lives of his followers, then would he have taken those unnecessary detours that ended up costing them their lives?

Perhaps some would point out that his men were loyal to him and obeyed his orders. This is only partially true. They didn’t heed him when he told them not to open the Bag of Winds, given to them by King Aeolus. Despite Odysseus having forbidden them to open the sack, his crew members did just that while he was asleep. As it says in Book 10 (pages 231–232, lines 49–50), “‘Hurry, let’s see what loot is in that sack, how much gold and silver. Break it open—now!’”

A second time they didn’t follow his orders was when they stayed on the island of Thrinacia, where the Cattle of Helios grazed. Odysseus instructed them to sail past the island, but they convinced him otherwise. Odysseus only agreed to let them stop on the island as long as they swore an oath not to kill any of the sacred cattle or sheep. “‘Friends, we’ve food and drink aplenty aboard the ship—keep your hands off all these herds, or we will pay the price!’” (Book 12, page 281, lines 45–47) Then his men went behind his back and slaughtered all the sacred animals, bringing on the anger of not only Odysseus but of the Gods as well. This shows that his men did not respect him enough as a leader to follow his orders.

Odysseus: A Flawed Hero

Simply put, I do not consider Odysseus a good leader. He took unneeded risks and made poor decisions due to his pride and greed. He ended up losing his entire crew, which could have been avoided. Despite that, Odysseus did eventually make it back home. Hopefully, Odysseus will have learned from his experiences and mistakes. Having been through more hardships and overcome more challenges on his long travels than others, he would have the knowledge to be a better leader.

An image of Odysseus, drawn by WolfyTheWitch for a YouTube Animatic for EPIC: The Musical by Jorge Rivera-Herrans. 

That's it for this essay!

No, I do not hate Odysseus... He is one of my favourite characters for being so well-rounded, and I greatly enjoyed reading The Odyssey (which I had to do for school). I hadn't written a proper essay in a long time, so I am quite proud of this! I got a lot of positive feedback from my parents and my sisters, so I wanted to share this further. It was perhaps the easiest and fastest blog post I have ever made (since it was basically already written)! 😅 I did my best to keep it as original as possible, but I had to change the layout and formatting due to Blogger being a bit complicated to work with sometimes... I also added a few more pictures to keep it interesting and included this little "Author's Note" at the end for more context. 😉

Before I finish this off, I wanted to mention that the reason I like The Odyssey and Odysseus so much is because of EPIC: The Musical composed by Jorge Rivera-Herrans. I discovered it at around the same time I started reading, and it helped the story and the characters truly come to life for me. Here are my two most favourite songs from the musical (which is still in progress). These are fan-made animatics (of which there are several on YouTube) to the songs, created by mircsy -mɪrtʃi-.

[Warrior of the Mind]

[My Goodbye]

In conclusion, while Odysseus is often seen or referred to as"god-like," I believe that he is just as human as the rest of us. 🙃

Do you think Odysseus was a good leader?

"Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns driven time and again off course, once he had plundered the hallowed heights of Troy." ~Book 1 (page 77, lines 1–3)