This is an interesting question and certainly one that is up to a certain degree of interpretation. On one hand, it might be easy to argue that Odysseus is not a good leader, considering that all his men get killed over the course of their voyage. Much of this is the result of Odysseus's own pride, seeing as it is his boastfulness that results in the punishing wrath of Poseidon. If he had put the needs of his crew first, rather than needing to boast to Polyphemus, much harm could have been avoided. Furthermore, Odysseus could have done a better job communicating with his crew. If he had simply told them what was in the bag that Aeolus had given them, they would not have prematurely opened it and could have safely sailed home.

However, I might still argue that Odysseus is a good leader in spite of all this. Even in the face of all their hardships, he never gives up their goal of reaching home. He truly cares about his crew, for instance, going out of his way to see that the spirit of Elpenor is laid to rest. He is able to think quickly on his feet and win through cunning rather than by brute force. All of these are qualities of a good leader.

First, one should note that what is considered a "good leader" is a culturally relative term. Homer's Odyssey refers to legendary events that happened over three thousand years ago and evolved gradually in oral form until written down approximately twenty-eight hundred years ago. The attitudes expressed in the poem are rooted in the fall of the Mycenaean civilization as refracted through an archaic Greek sensibility and include features that would be quite alien to the experiences and beliefs of a twenty-first century student.

In Homer, Odysseus is presented as a somewhat ambiguous figure who might be described by the British phrase "too clever by half." In other words, his major strength is his intelligence, but his own tendency to live by his wits and occasionally behave in a manner that is either reckless or underhanded can be problematic. A common epithet applied to him is "polymetis" or "polytropos," meaning "cunning in many ways."

He displays many of the typical aspects of the great hero or leader by ancient standards. He is a king, descended from divine parentage, physically strong and brave, and undoubtedly smart. He delays his return and thus puts himself and his men at risk in order to indulge in extra-marital affairs. While male adultery would not have been a problem for the original audience of the work, by modern standards, Odysseus would be guilty of sexual misconduct.

Odysseus devises a clever scheme that saves some of his men from Polyphemus, but his imprudent boasting as he escapes leads to the wrath of Poseidon. He makes the right choice in the case of Scylla and Charybdis but does lie to his men. At many points, he displays great leadership and bravery, but he is not portrayed as perfect but rather as a brilliant and powerful man and is somewhat of a trickster figure.

Yes, Odysseus is a good leader. When some of his men eat the lotus fruit and no longer wish to return home, Odysseus refuses to leave the island without them. He goes to shore, finds them, and makes them to return to the ship, physically forcing them. He knows in their hearts that they want to return to their families in Ithaca as much as he does, and so he refuses to listen to their protests that they want to remain where they are.

Further, when the ship must pass by Scylla, the six-headed beast that eats sailors from off their ships as they pass by, Odysseus doesn't hide below decks. He doesn't tell his men about the danger, and so he could go down below and protect himself without them even realizing. But he takes his chances, throwing in his lot with the rest of his crew.

In The Odyssey, Odysseus proves to be a good leader:

He is a prime example of a Homeric Hero – he exhibits ... moral responsibility in his actions throughout the epic, ...

First, Odysseus decides to go to war with the Greeks even though he does not want to leave his wife and son. Being the good leader he is, he puts aside his personal desires and unselfishly gives himself to warfare for his country.   

During war with Troy, he is brilliant in warfare. He comes up with the idea of the Trojan Horse. When the Trojans open their gates and bring in the Trojan Horse, Odysseus and the Greeks get inside the city of Troy. Odysseus leads his men to victory.

During his trip home from the war, Odysseus leads his men through many obstacles. He is fearless in the face of monsters and dangerous women such as Circe and Calypso. Odysseus never gives up in trying to keep his men safe. Although he loses men, he is devastated by the fact that he could not save all his men.

Odysseus had his flaws. He was prideful and even arrogant at times, but, in the end, he is humbled by his struggles and admits the gods have helped him through all of his struggles.

When Odysseus gets home, he wisely waits for the right time to attack the suitors. He advises his son Telemachus that there is a time to be angry. He adivises his son to be patient. All of these qualties are characteristics of a good leader.

Is Odysseus a good leader?

Odysseus is exceptionally clever and is portrayed in the Iliad and other sources as an excellent adviser to other leaders. In the Odyssey, however, he appears as a disastrously bad leader. The acid test of his leadership is that he fails to bring a single one of his men safely back from Troy to Ithaca.

One might argue that this failure is not Odysseus's fault, since his men refuse to listen to him. When they are within sight of the Ithacan harbor, they open the bag of winds that he expressly commanded them not to open, and they are blown all the way back to Aeolus, who refuses to help them a second time. Fatally, they ignore Odysseus's warnings again when they eat the Cattle of the Sun. Although these are failures of intelligence on the part of the crew, the fact that they do not listen to him marks Odysseus out as a poor leader. One cannot imagine the Myrmidons being so disobedient to Achilles.

The Odyssey, Homer tells the reader at the very beginning, is the story of a man—one man. Odysseus is one of literature's great individualists. He leads his men through a number of adventures, but his nature is not, like Aeneas's, fundamentally responsible. He is happier, as when facing Penelope's suitors with his bow and arrow, standing alone against the crowd.

Is Odysseus a good leader?

When answering this question, it is vital that the reader look to both the Iliad and the Odyssey to determine whether Odysseus meets the criteria of a good leader. First, let us examine his role in ending the siege of Troy and ensuring victory for the Greeks. When all of the invading Greeks have given up hope after the almost ten year long stalemate at the gates of Troy, and after many of his fellow leaders have died (Achilles, Ajax, et all) Odysseus formulates a plan using cunning and subterfuge to penetrate the gates of Troy by hiding himself and other Greeks in the faux gift of the Trojan horse.

The plan requires stealth and creativity, and it also requires Odysseus to convince his comrades that such a ruse could possibly work, when many are skeptical. Of course, the plan does work and leads to the fall of Troy. Without a doubt, this victory proves Odysseus' leadership skills in battle. He gets his men to trust and follow him, using persuasive rhetoric and by appealing to his men's patriotism and desire to get home. These are the hallmarks of a great leader.

Yet in the Odyssey, Odysseus certainly makes some questionable decisions, and all of his countrymen eventually die on that voyage. That said, the voyage home is plagued by the wrath of Poseidon, Aphrodite and other gods who oppose the Greeks and hate Odysseus for sacking Troy. Poseidon controls the seas on which Odysseus and his men travel, and it is debatable whether another leader could have steered his men home safely. They are all so tired from the Trojan War and face such obstacles that their deaths are less an indictment of Odysseus's leadership than a demonstration of Odysseus’ remarkable skill as a survivalist, and the strength of his guardian, Athena.

To examine Odysseus' skills as a leader during his voyage home, one can look to the Island of the Lotus Eaters, where Odysseus's scouts could have been stranded forever, hooked on the narcotic that delays so many there forever. Instead, Odysseus manages to find his men and take them away from the island by force so that they do not become captives to their own sloth, forget their homes and families, and succumb to addiction. Odysseus again displays his creative leadership when he forces his men to fill their ears with wax as they travel by the Sirens, whose sweet songs have shipwrecked thousands of men on the sharp rocks nearby. 

Yet the perils of the ocean and the wrath of gods set against him are too great. Odysseus manages to outsmart the Cyclops, Polythemus, who kills many of his men and enslaves Odysseus for a time. He manages to navigate his ship between the sea monsters, Scylla (the hydra-headed leviathan) and Charybdis (the whirling vortex), and even though many of his men die, others survive because of Odysseus' bravery and unwillingness to succumb to despair.

Odysseus' remaining countrymen die because they fail to heed the warnings of Tiresias and Circe, who tell them not to eat the cattle on the Island of Helios. Odysseus himself does not eat the cattle, and thus survives. Again and again, Odysseus tries to instill in his men the same stoicism and self-control that he possesses, but they are not able to do so. For that reason, it is difficult to lay the blame for their deaths on Odysseus' lack of leadership. If anything, his men might have perished much sooner without his problem solving skills and ability to find inspiration and hope when hope seems like madness.

In what parts of Homer's Odyssey is Odysseus represented as a good leader?

Good leadership is one of Odysseus’ main qualities that Homer accentuates. Because Odysseus is mortal, however, he is also fallible; his quandaries and mistakes help make the epic so engaging.

Part of what makes Odysseus a good leader is using sound judgment about when to follow others’ advice. According to Circe’s advice, for example, he organizes his crew to steer through Scylla and Charybdis. He has the men stop up their ears so they cannot heed the siren’s call, but first he has them lash him to the mast. He wants to be fully aware of the dangers but is sensible enough to anticipate he would lack the strength to resist them.

Even the best leader cannot control all the circumstances. His men’s bad behavior on the island of the Sun God, Helios, is an example of a time when he exercises good leadership, but it does not lead to a positive solution. The men are tired of being onboard ship with limited rations, and succumb to temptation. Finding Helios’ cattle irresistible, they slaughter, roast, and eat some while Odysseus is sleeping. Stepping up to manage the situation, he does get them away from the island.

Finally, Odysseus returns home to deal with the terrible mess the suitors have been making. He acts as a leader by serving both as a role model to his son, Telemachus, and by showing his prowess as a warrior. Although killing all the suitors may sound harsh, he understood the need to indisputably re-establish his claim to his home after being gone so long.

In what parts of Homer's Odyssey is Odysseus represented as a good leader?

It is possible to see Odysseus as a good leader when he rightly cautions his men against lingering on Ismarus after they've killed the men and stolen the women and treasures.  Unfortunately, they ignore him, they get attacked by the survivors of their attack, and six men of each ship are lost.  Still, Odysseus gave them sound advice (even though they didn't take it), as a good leader should.

Further, Odysseus appears to be a good leader when his crew arrives in the land of the Lotus-eaters.  He only sends three men to shore, being very cautious after the disaster in Ismarus, and when these three men eat the lotus fruit and want to stay there forever, he physically wrestles them back to the ship.  He knows that, in their heart of hearts, they want to return home to Ithaca, and so he looks out for their best interest even when they cannot. 

Finally, Odysseus seems like a good leader when he takes Circe's advice and makes the tough call to sacrifice six of his men to Scylla rather than risk losing them all to Charybdis.  Even though he knows it will be painful and terrible to lose six of his crew, he knows that it would be better to lose six men than all of them.  Sometimes good leaders have to make difficult decisions for the greater good, and Odysseus does this.