Odysseus As A Leader In The Odyssey

Leadership is an important quality in life that it used everyday to overcome small and large goals that we face. In The Odyssey by Homer and translated by Robert Fitzgerald Odysseus is a clever, hero figure trying to get back home after ten long years of war. At the beginning of his long journey home he lacks proper skills of a leader. Through his experiences he learns and adapt to them to and work on them which result with him getting closer to his goal, getting home. We must learn to be a proper leader so that we can achieve our goals and desires. A step towards being a good leader is to recognize when we need help and asking for it. One of the first concepts Odysseus learns is that we all need help at some point and it’s okay to ask for it. When Odysseus and his men go to the island …show more content…
He addressed their problem and knew that he needed help, as a result he prayed to the god of wisdom. As a leader, like Odysseus people depend and look up to him, recognizing that they need help is a good thing even though it can seem as a sign of weakness. Asking for help shows that as a leader they are more open to improving and that they want the best thing for them and their people so that they can get closer to their goals. Another situation where we see Odysseus ask for help is at Helios’ Island. After Odysseus and his men are at the island for multiple days and running low on food, Odysseus goes and prays to the gods for help and for hope. Odysseus recounts as they are in the cave that, “The storms continued. So one day I withdrew to the interior to pray the gods in solitude, for hope that one might show me some way of salvation.” (Fitzgerald 220). The men were struggling and instead of Odysseus thinking that he can do it himself and having the chance to fall to temptation he goes and asks for help. In these situation and others, when he asked for