‘Leadership’ litters newspapers and networks such as LinkedIn, with people claiming to embody it, or vaunting the leadership of others. It’s perhaps one of the most over-hyped terms of our time, and rarely less convincingly than when combined with the term ‘thought’.  I have yet to meet or read or hear a genuine ‘thought leader’ who calls themselves so, or a person who describes themselves in this way as showing much sign of having leading thoughts.

But while ‘leadership’ sounds contemporary and cool, it is ancient, as is the sense of being let down by one’s so-called leaders.  Here Achilles, the proud warrior, tell Agamemnon what he thinks of his kingship: I was struck by Logue’s witty way of packing Achilles’ punch.  

‘Seeing your leadership has left me leaderless.’

Logue’s rendition of Homer’s Iliad is a compact masterpiece of muscular, original writing – see the bestellar review here, complete with a rich mosaic of quotes and metaphors.

Source: Christopher Logue, War Music: An account of Books 1-4 and 16-19 of Homer’s Iliad, London: Faber and Faber, 2001, p. 24

Photo credit: manfredrichter at pixabay.com