The homecoming

On sharing experience, leadership development, and what happens when the journey is over

I had been looking forward to seeing the new film about Odysseus. For several years, I have used episodes from his journey as metaphors when teaching leadership and leadership development. I therefore expected those episodes to be what stayed with me. Instead, something else followed me out of the cinema: the homecoming.

The idea was not entirely new to me. I first encountered it when I read Steinar Bjartveit's book Odyssevs in which he writes about the Greek concept of Nostos.Nostos means homecoming or journey home. For Bjartveit, the term is also about something more than just coming home.

«Nostos was about finding the way back to oneself.” (Bjartveit, 2016, p. 22)

I read this as something more than simply returning to Ithaca. Odysseus is not only returning to a place, but to a life, to people and relationships. At the same time, he has to discover how the person he has become can belong in what was once familiar. The homecoming is therefore not simply the end of the journey. It is also where the experiences of the journey meet the life that follows.

The film made me think about Nostos. in relation to something I have worked with for many years: leadership development.

Perhaps the real test of leadership development only begins when the leader returns home.

We devote a great deal of time and energy to the leader's developmental journey. We design programmes, gatherings, exercises and conversations. We challenge leaders to examine how they use power, deal with pressure, build trust, affect others and understand themselves. We try to create experiences that can open up new perspectives and greater awareness. After seeing the film, it struck me that the return itself may deserve more attention in the way we think about leadership development.

When a programme ends, the leader returns to employees, leadership teams, organisational cultures and many of the same challenges that were there before the journey began. The people the leader returns to have not taken part in the conversations, reflections or discoveries that occurred along the way. At the same time, the organisation has not necessarily stood still. Relationships may have changed, decisions may have been made and expectations may have shifted.

The homecoming is therefore not simply about bringing something new back. It is also about how a leader who may have changed finds his or her place again.

This has led me to ask a fairly simple question: If a leader has genuinely developed, who should notice it first: the leader, or the people around them?

A leader may have had powerful experiences during a leadership development programme, gained new perspectives and developed greater self-awareness, without those around them necessarily noticing any difference. At some point, development has to meet everyday practice. It may show itself in small ways: listening a little longer before responding, asking one more question before making a decision, tolerating resistance better, or becoming more aware of how one's position affects others.

For me, this is where development becomes particularly interesting. Not primarily in the classroom, but on a Tuesday morning when time is short, someone disagrees, and a decision still has to be made.

When the journey must be told

After the movie I went back to Homer's OdysseenThere I became particularly interested in something that is not included in the film: Odysseus is given the opportunity to tell others what he has been through.

Among the Phaeacians, King Alcinous asks Odysseus to tell them who he is and where his journey has taken him. He recounts the years after Troy, the mistakes, dangers and losses that have shaped his journey. Once he has told his story, the Phaeacians help him continue home to Ithaca (Homer, 2026, songs 8–12).

In this sense, telling the story of the journey becomes part of the homecoming itself.

Later, after returning home, Penelope and Odysseus tell each other what they have lived through during their years apart. Odysseus once again recounts his journey and what he has experienced (Homer, 2026, song 23). What happened is therefore no longer something he carries alone. By telling the story, he has to place events in context for people who were not there. The journey becomes not only something he has experienced, but something he tries to understand and share.

It would be wrong to call these conversations a debrief in the modern sense. That is not what Homer is describing. Yet they make me think of Holistic Debrief:Having been through something is not necessarily the same as having learned from it. The experience also needs to be processed, put into words and made available to others.

As Holistic Debriefing is used in the Royal Norwegian Air Force, the purpose is not simply to reconstruct what happened or determine what went right and what went wrong. It is also about exploring what we were thinking while events unfolded, how we reacted, what we understood at the time, and how we understand the experience when we later look back on it. At some point, we have to put our experiences into words if others are to learn from them.

Perhaps that is why this part of Odysseen has begun to interest me more. The homecoming is not complete simply because Odysseus sets foot on Ithaca. At some point, the journey must also become a story that can be shared with others.

We often say that we learn from experience. Yet most of us are in a hurry to move on.

Having gone through something is not necessarily the same as having learned from it. Sometimes we need to stop, try to understand what happened and what it did to us, and allow others to learn from what we experienced.

Sometimes, then, coming home also means being able to tell others where you have been.

When leadership development meets everyday life

I have long been concerned with ensuring that leadership development is connected to the everyday reality in which leaders actually work. This applies both to the programmes I develop and to the coaching I provide. Yet the film and the idea of Nostos. made me ask a slightly different question: Have I paid enough attention to what happens when the leader returns and the experiences from the developmental journey meet everyday leadership practice?

We often conclude programmes with summaries, evaluations and learning points before participants return to work. Formally, the programme is over, but that does not necessarily mean that the development process is over. It is only when new perspectives encounter old habits, established relationships, time pressure and real decisions that we begin to see what has actually taken root.

Then perhaps we should also ask another question. Not only “What did you learn?”, but: What should the people around you notice when you return?

I find this a more demanding question because it shifts attention away from the leader's own experience and towards how their leadership actually affects others. For those of us who work with leadership development, it also means paying attention to what happens when experiences from a programme meet everyday leadership practice.

ext week, we conclude Cohort XXII of the Norwegian Armed Forces Mentor Programme. In many ways, their journey is over. The gatherings, conversations with mentors and reflections have taken place, and the participants will return to their leadership roles, to the people they lead and to the organisations of which they are part. Working on this text has made me think that perhaps this is precisely the point at which we should pay particular attention.

Because the real test of leadership development may not lie in what the leader can say that he or she has learned, but in what the people around them actually notice when the leader returns.

That's why I think we should end development journeys with a different question than just "What have you learned?"

What should the people around you notice when you come home?

References

Bjartveit, S. (2016). Odyssevs. Fagbokforlaget

Homer. (2026). Odysseen (P. Østbye, trans.; 2nd ed.). Gyldendal.