Lessons on Leadership From Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey”

We asked three Rice Business organizational behavior faculty what Christopher Nolan’s film adaptation of Homer’s “The Odyssey” says about leadership. Their answers pull on three different threads: when a leader should hold back their own authority, what the second-in-command absorbs from above and below, and why determination alone cannot guarantee the outcome.

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When a leader outgrows the strengths that brought them success

Brent Smith, Senior Associate Dean for Executive Education and Associate Professor of Management and Psychology – Organizational Behavior

We usually think of Homer’s Odyssey as a story about return. Odysseus wants to reach Ithaca and reclaim the life he left behind. For managers, the deeper lesson is whether a leader can become larger than the identity that once made him successful.

Odysseus begins as a warrior, strategist, and man of reputation. His strengths help him survive, yet they also become traps. After escaping the Cyclops by calling himself “Nobody,” he cannot resist revealing his name. He reclaims recognition too soon and pays for it. Managers face a similar danger: the decisive operator can become impatient with dialogue, and the expert can struggle to delegate. A strength that earned success may become too narrow for a larger role.

Odysseus’s journey disrupts his identity. He becomes a wanderer, captive, storyteller, beggar and observer. Each role requires a different way of acting. Leadership growth often works this way. The old approach stops fitting before a new one feels natural.

His most important leadership lesson comes after he reaches Ithaca. Disguised as a beggar, Odysseus enters his own home without recognition. He must watch, listen, study loyalties, and wait. The man who once needed his name to be known learns the discipline of remaining unknown. Managers sometimes need the same restraint. Leadership can mean delaying authority, observing before acting, and putting purpose ahead of recognition.

This is the gift of reimagining: becoming more than the old version of yourself allowed. The manager rewarded for answers learns to ask better questions. The leader who relied on control learns to create room for others. Odysseus returns as himself, but with a larger identity. That is the leadership promise of “The Odyssey.”

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Caught between the leader and the crew

Sora Jun, Assistant Professor of Management – Organizational Behavior

The character I found most interesting was Eurylochus (played by Himesh Patel), Odysseus’s second-in-command. With some caveats about comparing group- and individual-level hierarchies, I see him as a kind of middle manager.

Eurylochus holds “middle status” within the crew. He has the trust of both Odysseus and the men, but he also faces pressure to manage relationships upward and downward. We see him constantly translating the crew’s fears and grievances into something Odysseus will accept, while also having to convince the crew to follow Odysseus’s lead even when little explanation is offered.

This is close to what management scholars have studied about middle managers: Their job is to hold two levels of a hierarchy together without fully belonging to either.

I know the story is far more complicated than what the movie could show, but I think the crew’s fate is a reminder of what can happen when people in that middle-manager role aren’t given enough information, resources or real authority to do the job asked of them. The strain of managing competing demands from above and below can eventually break the trust the role depends on.

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When reaching the goal means letting go

Mijeong Kwon, Assistant Professor of Management – Organizational Behavior

What struck me most was the paradox of Odysseus’s homecoming. His determination keeps him moving, yet he returns only after letting go of his need to control the outcome.

Organizational theorist Karl Weick used a story told in a poem by Miroslav Holub about soldiers lost in the mountains. One soldier finds a map, which gives them enough confidence to keep moving. They eventually make it back, only to discover that the map was of the Pyrenees while they had been lost in the Alps. The map enabled them to act even though it could not accurately show them the way home.

Odysseus’s prophecy, that he and only he will make it home, may serve a similar function. We cannot fully anticipate how we will reach a goal, but sometimes a map or simply a belief keeps us moving.

The film also reminded me of Charles Lindblom’s idea of “muddling through”: Rather than advancing toward a goal through a comprehensive plan, real-world decision-making often consists of successive, limited steps, with the path becoming clearer only as we move.

I kept thinking also about the role of the film’s supporting characters. Odysseus makes extraordinary efforts to return home, but I wondered whether Penelope’s years of waiting and trust, and the actions of others who remained committed to him, also somehow contribute to his return. Relationships can shape outcomes in ways no individual can fully see or control.

For me, the movie tells a beautiful story about a paradox of motivation. My motivation may sometimes prevent me from reaching my goal by compelling me to control the outcome. I may reach it only after I let go. Yet reaching it may still be possible only because of the actions I took and the relationships I built while pursuing it.