Examples Of Leadership In Beowulf

Another person who was loyal in the book of beowulf was Wiglaf. He was a young kinsman and he was a retainer of beowulf, and he helped him in battle

Beowulf is a model of leadership for our own times because he is very courageous and his strength is super human like. His skills and traits would not be good in our times though because a leader of a nation in our time doesn’t need to be very courageous and very strong to fight off people or go to war.

First, loyalty is very important to the Anglo-Saxon people. Loyalty is swearing allegiance to a person, place, or thing. There are many examples of loyalty in Beowulf. Beowulf is exceedingly loyal throughout the entire Anglo-Saxon epic. Beowulf shows loyalty to the Geats and his king. To elaborate, Beowulf shows loyalty to the Geats and his king, Hygelac, by notifying them of his plans to travel to the land of the Danes and help the Danish King, Hrothgar, defeat Cain’s descendant, Grendel, who has been terrorizing Hrothgar’s mead-hall. Beowulf is loyal and seeks the approval of the Geats and Hygelac before anything else(first and foremost), and Beowulf most likely would not have left the land of the Geats to help the Danes if his people and king did not approve. Also, Beowulf demonstrates loyalty to Hrothgar because of an allegiance between Beowulf’s father and Hrothgar. Beowulf helped the Danes for glory and because of a sense of devotion to Hrothgar who once helped Beowulf’s father, Ecgtheow, after he killed a man. Hrothgar paid the death price for

Leadership skills are exemplified in the poem Beowulf through Beowulf’s characteristics and actions and his ability to lead and motivate his thanes. Unwillingness to give in to pride is also a leadership skill revealed in Beowulf. Beowulf displays courage and confidence during the battles of all three beasts of Beowulf. He ensures that his warriors trust in him enough to believe that they may be able to achieve a definite goal together. Beowulf, however, does allow his pride to obscure his vision of the future, therefore he does not possess all the necessary skills a leader should have.

Leadership is the ability of motivating an assembly of people to act towards a common goal and has the skill to make others want to follow in their direction (Ward). The epic Beowulf, contains various scenes of how the protagonist hero, Beowulf, shows great leadership. Beowulf portrays good leadership by his confidence, his physical strength, and his loyalty, which are important qualities of the Anglo-Saxon time.

In any culture there is some type of leadership. Whether it is a group or a single person, all leadership has certain qualities that are admired. Qualities that have been established through cultural core values over centuries of time. There are certain qualities that overlap in many cultures. This is also true in Anglo-Saxon writings and stories, like Beowulf.

Is the public loyal? Do the people show loyalty? If the people think about it, the public can all relate to Beowulf. Every person must have a person or a thing who they are loyal to. It doesn’t even have to be between people, one can be loyal to what they put their self into, maybe school or work. If a person gives all his loyalty to their career or job then it will all pay off. For example, in the Dream of the Rood, (123-124) “I prayed to that tree with ardent zeal, where I was alone with few

Beowulf serves as the key exemplification of the definition of loyalty. First, he willingly pledges allegiance to Hrothgar following his arrival at Heorot. He does so out of his allegiance to his father who served as Hrothgar’s friend. Second, Beowulf strays away from the archetype mercenary who usually serve themselves and fight for themselves. Although young and boastful, Beowulf shows humility by obeying the king’s orders to kill Grendel and his mother. Third, he recruits an army of great fighters to journey to Heorot to battle Grendel. This shows Beowulf inspiration as a leader and shows the loyalty of his men to fight and die with him. And fourth, Beowulf obedience lies with King Hrothgar. He asks not for gold, and knowing the risk of battle still obeys the

The first example of a character possessing kingship qualities in the poem “Beowulf” is Hrothgar. Hrothgar is incredibly powerful and possesses kingship and leadership qualities such as strength which enabled him to be the king. Hrothgar represents a strong leader which is what the people wanted as they felt fear. Beowulf is the second character in the poem “Beowulf” who possesses kingship qualities. One example of kingship qualities on display is when Beowulf defeats Grendel, we know Beowulf won the battles as the story states, “Beowulf was granted the glory of winning; Grendel was driven under the fen-banks, fatally hurt, to his desolate lair” (Beowulf 58).

In the case of beowulf it is mentioned that he is a good example of the heroic ideal that in several important ways fit well with the Conger-Kanungo charismatic leader model ( Loghman and Finley p. 159). This meaning that the authors think that beowulf is a perfect example of a charismatic leaders and he fits the criteria of one too. Beowulf is absolutely fearless and confident in his own abilities (p. 159). Which is a quality that is held by a charismatic leader. The boast that he makes before the battle with grendel signal a public, inspirational articulation of confidence in his own and companions abilities to overcome adversity in the form of the monster. This means that these are one of the qualities that beowulf has that makes him a charismatic leader. Charismatic leaders differ from other leaders by their ability to formulate and articulate an inspiration vision and by behaviors and actions that foster an impression that they and their mission are extraordinary (p. 159). This proves that the authors believe that beowulf matches the description of a charismatic leader which makes him

Based on the readings, I believe that a good hero does not make a good leader. After reading through Beowulf and Hamlet I found that many of the characteristics that made certain characters’ hero’s, did not allow them to become successful leaders. Although many people might think that the words “hero” and “leader” are interchangeable, I found that not to be the case. In the first example, Beowulf suffered from an obsession with personal accomplishment and fame which prevented him from leading his people in a proper way. Hamlet, on the other hand, was a different kind of hero who possessed flaws that stopped him from becoming a good leader. Examples of good hero’s not being good leaders occur in real life as well, not just literature. Many examples of this happening occur in sports where certain players have loads of talent, but no leadership skills.

After reading this comparison by Tom Loughman and John Finley in Beowulf and the teaching of Leadership, I could see what points they were trying to create when they compared leadership and Beowulf. To inform you what this excerpt is about, is basically the authors annotating and sighting evidence as to how there is leadership in the mystical story of Beowulf. They go through each episode or chapter and give a brief description of what happened during this part of the story, the authors also state how Beowulf has the features of a charismatic hero. The best comparison they made here was with Conger and Kanungo’s, stating how this created the standard of what charismatic leadership is and then after this they go right into how Beowulf compares to this, this formula worked perfectly. Now what I liked about this was how much of a description they provided, for example they talked about the hysterical background of what the story Beowulf resonates from and how people created these myths and fairytales that to make people follow loyalty. I do agree with how leadership does play a huge role in the story of Beowulf and is sort of a minor theme, the weakness of this is that they do go into too much details about the story that doesn’t relate to their topic of leadership. Overall, I feel they did a great job of getting there point across on how Beowulf reflects heavily on leadership without the audience really knowing it did.

In the passage Beowulf as Charismatic Leader, the authors, Finley and Loughman, discussed about how Beowulf was fearless and confident in himself, and how his boast before fighting Grendel gave his comrades the spirit to fight the monster (159). Beowulf’s companions would follow him till death because of their confidence in his abilities and how he makes them complete difficult challenges (160). However, everything changed when Beowulf gets injured by fighting off a dragon that has been terrorizing the land. His comrades left him to die, after seeing Beowulf hurt and injured it made them lose confidence in themselves because if the great and mighty Beowulf could not slay the dragon, then who will? Or should I say who can? Without a leader they feel hopeless, weak, and defeated. Beowulf could have taught his followers more on how to become a leader of some of sort so that when the time comes, the followers will be prepared and ready. However, there was only one thing his comrades knew what to do and that's following orders, they never really learned how to take charge for themselves because Beowulf was always the first one to step up to the plate.

At each step of Beowulf’s career, it appears loyalty is his guiding virtue. As noted beforehand, the character comes to the aid of the Danes for reasons, which are complex and difficult to understand. Without a doubt, he has an interest in gaining honor and increasing his reputation. Leaders make the most achievements through

a monster who terrorizes the land, they realize Beowulf (the leader) must rid Grendel of