The Leadership Of Brutus In Shakespeare's Julius Caesar

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Although Julius Caesar's character Brutus is seen utilizing leadership qualities such as selflessness, confidence and devotion, he essentially is an ineffective leader in the drama as a result of his persistent commitment to being honorable.
While Brutus in many cases is seen as an honorable man and a protector of the people, his honor is also seen having a negative impact on his individual actions as well as his overall effectiveness as a leader. Throughout the drama, Brutus is seen as a noble man holding great morals and beliefs that create both a great virtue and a threatening flaw within himself. He holds a strong allegiance towards the people of Rome which plays a large role in persuading him to join the conspiracy against Caesar. Cassius
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By creating an illusion of a dishonorable death as a result of Caesar, Brutus is easily manipulated into following Cassius through the assassination. This shows his ineffectiveness as a leader as Brutus is easily manipulated and quickly becomes disloyal to Caesar when deceived into believing he is a threat. Brutus also portrays ineffective leadership following Caesar’ assassination. His strong belief in honorable behavior causes him to posses a naive view of society and in the characters that surround him. This eventually plays a large role in his poor leadership as his naiveness towards the citizens of Rome and the other conspirators lead to his downfall. Even though Cassius advises the conspirators to kill Antony, Brutus opposes this and tells Antony that “our arms in strength of malice and our hearts/Of brothers’ temper do receive you in/With all kind love, good thoughts and reverence.” (III.i.185-187). Throughout the play Brutus sets his entire focus on following his own morals and beliefs, however this comes to be a disadvantage as killing Antony would have prevented his ultimate undoing. Brutus’ honor prevents him from killing Antony and allowing Antony to speak on Caesar’ behalf, resulting