Odysseus as a Bad Leader in the Poem

In the epic poem “The Odyssey” the main character, Odysseus can be described as a bad leader. A leader can be described as a bad or good leader. According to this definition odysseus is not a her in the following paragraphs, We will look at odysseus attributes to discuss how odysseus is a bad leader. Odysseus was not a great leader, all his actions explain everything. First he let his men die, odysseus did not tell his men about the danger. Eventually all his men ended up dying. Every single member of his crew dies. He didn’t even realise that his crew mate elpenor had died and left without him, elpenor had to remind him in the underworld. Even six of his men were getting blinded all because odysseus wants his gift,(book 9, 251-259). This proves that odysseus terms of leadership are lacking. If odysseus was a good leader he would of have let all his men know about the danger but he didn’t, it was for his own sake. Odysseus was not responsible enough to keep all his men from the pouch of wind either. In the first few paragraphs odysseus and his men were almost home but one of his men opened up the wind pouch and were set out to sail. Odysseus is not the most responsible leader. Although odysseus does show his traits of being a good leader by defending all his men from the cyclops(book 9, 531-583). In book 12 odysseus and his men fight the cyclops and odysseus defends them the best he could. He also helps his men when circi had turned his men into pigs by making them back to their original human form. Humans are not perfect and just because odysseus was a bad leader this does not mean he was not helpful with his men at some point. Odysseus still helped his men out when they need him. On the other hand, he only did this for his own sake because at the end of the day it only benefited him. He has been selfish and made everything about him,(book 9, 531-583). Based on the evidence presented here, we conclude that odysseus is a bad leader. Looking at his best attributes, we can see that odysseus continuously shows that he is being selfish. This shows that odysseus was doing everything for his own good. Even today’s world we see leaders similar to odysseus nature. For example being selfish, careless and etc… over all this proves that he is a bad leader.

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