The Odyssey is an educative movie with lessons on the organizational behavior. The movie was released in 1997 and the director was Andrei Konchalovsky (YouTube, 1997). The movie analyses the life of Odysseus who was the king of Greek Kingdom of Ithaca. After leading his people successfully to win in the Trojan War, he finds it challenging to go back to Greece (Ithaca) as there were massive challenges on the way. As the movie runs, there are two organizational behavior topics that are evident. The topics are leadership and communication. The flow of activities throughout the movie is proper illustration of the topics.
The movie is proper illustration of the great man theory, which asserts that great leaders arise when great, needs come up. Odysseus is indeed a great leader as he leads his people through a set of obstacles on their way to freedom. As the leader, when monsters as well as dangers like Circe and Calypso he raises his spirit to fight for the freedom of his people. Although, in the process he loses men, he remains determined that he will win to ensure his family reaches Greece.
In addition, the role theory best describes how Odysseus carries out his responsibility as a leader. He ensures all the people involved in the war undertake their responsibilities accordingly. He allocates the duties accordingly with proper follow up for the respective individuals. All the parties have to participate fully and be committed to their responsibilities. As the leader he undertakes the management responsibility accordingly. He is the outstanding example on how roles and responsibilities within the company should be undertaken. The combination of various efforts to execute roles among the participants enables the group to pursue its enemies and move on towards Greece.
His style of leadership is participative. He engages all the parties in the effort of reaching Greece despite the conditions on the way. He ensures his efforts to unite the people will bear fruits (Gross, 2012). As such, he focuses on building links among the participants by entrusting specific responsibilities to each of them. All the individuals have unique roles that they are supposed to undertake so as to equip them with the duty of reaching Greece after the Trojan War. Odysseus is part of the winning team as he establishes ties among the participants to ensure they remain equally motivated to achieving the success. There is no position that is not well linked to the rest so as to ensure all individuals are committed to the success of their mission. Odysseus believes that the success of the mission has to rely on the efforts and commitment of the parties.
Communication is another topic on organizational behavior that is evident in this movie. It is evident in a number of ways throughout the film. In this case communication may refer to how Odysseus communicated his views to the people. One of the theories of communication that is evident in the movie is the communist theory of communication. The theory requires the idea of the ruling personality be the ruling idea (Petrič, Petrovčič & Vehovar, 2011). In this case, Odysseus is the leader and his decisions are final. He could not be subjected to questions or queries that would indicate any challenge to the decisions that he made. His words were final and every person in the team had to follow his words.
The nature of the movie depicts the nature of the development communication theory. The theory is centered on the argument that there cannot be development in the absence of communication. Odysseus had to participate fully in communicating the plans to the participants. This was meant to ensure the practicality of the steps that had been outlined. The achievements for the team could only have been achieved if all the individuals were willing to undertake the messages that were passed to them on development. They had to ensure every message to make them move forward would bring results as they pursue their journey to Greece.
Leadership and communication are intertwined in the definition of organizational behavior. In a number of ways they complement each other. For example, an outstanding leader must be an outstanding communicator. If he is supposed to deliver a certain message to the subordinates, he must do it with the necessary professionalism (De Vries, Bakker-Pieper, & Oostenveld, 2010). Odysseus is proper illustration of how leaders should be good communicators. He delivers his messages in an easily understandable manner, with the message being keenly delivered to the subordinates. He respects them by giving instructions in a friendly manner so as to maintain proper relationship with them as they pursue their goal.
The Odysseus movie is an extensive definition of leadership and communication. The leader of a team should be participative, undertakes roles accordingly as definition for his skills in leadership. Leadership is integrated through proper communication. A leader should communicate accordingly for the subordinates to get him easily. However, delegation of duties could have made the leadership easier if certain people had been entrusted certain responsibilities.
References
De Vries, R. E., Bakker-Pieper, A., & Oostenveld, W. (2010). Leadership= communication? The relations of leaders’ communication styles with leadership styles, knowledge sharing and leadership outcomes. Journal of business and psychology, 25(3), 367-380.
Gross, B. (2012). Leadership processes vs. competences: Management theories and approaches. Iaem Bulletin, 29(10), 21-24.
Petrič, G., Petrovčič, A., & Vehovar, V. (2011). Social uses of interpersonal communication technologies in a complex media environment. European Journal of Communication, 26, 2, 116-132.
YouTube (1997). The Odyssey 3D Animation Film. Retrieved June 22, 2015, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSRucHuNHP4
Appendix
Odysseus who is the leader of the ancient Greek Kingdom of Ithaca is requested to participate in the Trojan war. He sure the war is challenging and assures his wife Queen Penelope that he may not return and offers her the chance to remarry if he does not return. Odysseus leads the people in the war for 10 years at the time of Achilles, who is an outstanding leader of the Greeks. The war involves the gods of the region, who discourages Odysseus that he could not achieve his goal and could not return home.
Odysseus and his team go through an island that is dominated by one-eyed giants known as the Cyclopes, which intend to eat them. Odysseus is tricky enough to trap the giant by making him drunk to a point of death. Odysseus succeeds in removing his people from the island.
After avoiding so many traps on the way, Odysseus and the team gets to the Underworld, instead of Tiresias commending them for the good work, he criticizes Odysseus ego and foolishness. Odysseus sacrifices a goat at River Styx, which is a further point for criticism by Tiresias. As the team boards a boat to Ithaca, along the isle of Scylla and Charybdis snakes attack the crew killing many of them. All other people are killed apart from Odysseus through the destruction of the ship. On arriving on the island, Odyssesus becomes Calypso prisoner who releases him after two years and offers him a rift to reach him to Ithaca. After being messed up on the shore, he gets unconscious where he is taken home by the Phaeacian King. He salys all the suitors of Penelope and gets reunited to her.
