Compare/contrast "The Lady or The Tiger" and The Odyssey Book 12 in which you examine the theme of leadership and the ways the authors use the texts in conveying their role of leadership? (Need to have main claim with two assertions in comparing/contrasting the role of leadership in these texts)

Both of these literary works present the theme of making a near-impossible choice between two bad alternatives, often referred to as “a rock and a hard place.” The short story formalized a traditional tale, using a phrase that has come to equal such a choice. In the Odyssey as well, the dangers on either side of a hazardous sea passage, Scylla and Charybdis, have likewise become a metaphor for a necessary decision in a no-win situation. The difference between them is partly in the ambiguity of the story’s ending, as the interpretation relies on the reader, and the certainty of the Odyssey portion, in which Odysseus clearly acted on he saw as the best alternative.
In “The Lady or the Tiger,” the king has a particular leadership style that dispenses justice fairly, in his view. However, he only acts on his own advice and does not consult others. The king’s had ideas which,

though somewhat polished and sharpened by the progressiveness of distant Latin neighbors, were still large, florid, and untrammeled, as became the half of him which was barbaric. He was a man of exuberant fancy, and, withal, of an authority so irresistible that, at his will, he turned his varied fancies into facts. He was greatly given to self-communing, and, when he and himself agreed upon anything, the thing was done.

Although the punishment is part of public spectacle, the king allows the convicted person to make a choice. Even though one alternative will lead to certain death, the prisoner has a fifty-fifty chance not just of survival, but of thriving. But the daughter also has a role as a leader because the king is her father; that is the main reason that the young man is brought before the king in the first place. Will she show love, compassion, and fairness—will she dispense justice or act out of revenge?
The author concludes the story with the classic question: “And so I leave it with all of you: Which came out of the opened door,—the lady, or the tiger?”
When the ship bearing Odysseus and his men nears the crags on either side of the passage, he warns them of the danger of Charybdis, the fatal whirlpool. He shows good leadership as they follow his instructions to stay at the oars.

Do you keep your seats on the benches and smite with your oars the deep surf of the sea, in the hope that Zeus may grant us to escape and avoid this death. And to thee, steersman, I give this command, and do thou lay it to heart, since thou wieldest the steering oar of the hollow ship. From this smoke and surf keep the ship well away and hug the cliff, lest, ere thou know it, the ship swerve off to the other side and thou cast us into destruction.

Odysseus, however, decides not to tell them about the other hazard, a horrible monster that eats men alive, six at a time because it has six heads.

But of Scylla I went not on to speak, a cureless bane, lest haply my comrades, seized with fear, should cease from rowing and huddle together in the hold.

His decision to withhold this information proves fatal to six men, as the ship does get too close to Scylla, who devours them.
http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/LadyTige.shtml

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0136%3Abook%3D12%3Acard%3D192