Leadership In The Lord Of The Flies By William Golding

The boys don’t want to be told what to do. This is not only true in the book but is a simple fact of adolescence. For example, the American Academy of Pediatrics states that, “From time to time most children defy the wishes of their parents. This is a part of growing up and testing adult guidelines and expectations. It is one way for children to learn about and discover their own selves, express their individuality, and achieve a sense of autonomy.” (American Academy of Pediatrics) The same goes for Lord of the Flies. The reader can think of Ralph as the parent who has the best interest for his son/daughter and Jack as his/her’s disobedient troubled friend. In Lord of the Flies the boys are at a stage where the disobedient troubled friend has a significant pull compared to the knowledgeable parent. The friend’s opinion can trump the parent’s in real life and does in Lord of the Flies when in chapter 8 some boys leave Ralph for Jack. This is concerning and is one of the main conflicts in Lord of the Flies. The loss of leadership was inevitable for Ralph because the boys are at a point in their life where they cannot exercise good judgement. For example, Jack is over the moon telling Ralph and the boys about how he killed a pig. Ralph who has better judgement has to remind Jack and say, “There was a ship-” (Golding, 75) This shows that Jack and the hunters do not have a good sense of judgement because they don’t do the most

There are two types of leaders: those who are feared, and those who are loved. In order to decide which is superior, one first needs to understand what a “good” leader is, and is able to accomplish. Good leaders are able to maintain order, keep their position of power, and have the loyalty of his/her subjects. As clearly shown in Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince, and William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, it is better to be feared as a leader than loved. This is proven in Lord of the Flies through Jack’s successful though chaotic rule, and Ralph’s unsuccessful experience as a leader.

In society, there are often people who acquire strong leadership qualities and understand what it means to be a favorable leader. Other times, there are people who have strong qualities to lead, but they do not understand how to be a favorable leader and create a safe and comfortable environment for those following them. In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, the characters of Ralph and Jack arise as two different leaders who bear strong characteristics and they both seek power on the island. The boys become leaders in their own ways, creating individual environments that prioritize different matters, all while trying to work towards their rescue off the island.

Over time there have been many leaders of countries, groups and societies that are believed to be the “best” or what someone could only dream of. However what if a perfect leader doesn’t exist? In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies Ralph’s sense of leadership declines throughout the novel. So what if he doesn’t actually possess the skills the boys had hoped he for.

In the Lord of the Flies, the boys are challenged when their plane crashes and they have to survive on a deserted island. To survive the boy’s find it necessary to establish a leader in the beginning. The boys face many of challenges throughout the whole book because of their lack of respect for their leader. Ralph, the stories leader, struggles to lead because of Jack, who opposes Ralph’s view of what needs to be in order to survive. Jack in turn, reverts to savagery and only wants to hunt and have fun. Whether the leader is good or evil, he or she needs to be assertive, be able to take action, and think about the “long-term”.

Humans are a sophisticated and advanced race, one which possess the ability to affect their environment, and one another, in significant and often destructive ways. War is a catastrophic event created by humans, who upon creating it neglect to comprehend its far-reaching effects. The novel, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, places a group of prepubescent males into one of these situations. After an evacuation aircraft crash-lands, the boys are left upon a deserted island to manage and fend for themselves. As Golding details the trials and tribulations of the young men on the island, it becomes increasingly apparent that the children respect authority and require an organized leadership. The failure to manifest such a system will result in a de-evolution into savagery.

“‘The rules!’ shouted Ralph. ‘You’re breaking the rules!’ ‘Who cares?’ Ralph summoned his wits: ‘Because the rules are the only thing we’ve got!’” (91). In Lord of the Flies, Ralph says this to Jack at one of their assemblies, after having berated the boys for neglecting the shelter building and the signal fires. Ralph’s leadership is built on these rules, and Jack’s breaking of them causes an ideological conflict between them which eventually leads to Ralph’s loss of power among the group. He tries to create a just and orderly society to fulfill their needs and allow them to be rescued, but the boys eventually find Jack’s churlish lethargy and excess to be more desirable. Desirable, as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary, can be

Some qualities that make a good leader are; honesty, communication, confidence, commitment, intuition, the willingness to make sacrifices for those you lead, and being able to inspire those you are leading and keep morale

Ralph and Jack are very different leaders in many different ways regarding themselves as people and as leaders on the island. Both leaders display very different versions of a human act in this book. Ralph is a person who acts more with ego, which is the most controlled part of human actions like being more civilized and organized with decisions regarding the island. He does this by assigning different roles to the littluns like the ones that are responsible for shelter, the hunters, and fire keepers. Jack, on the other hand, acts more with the ID, the animal part of a human, with his decisions as a leader. Jack favors, food over the shelter, which is the total opposite of Ralph, in fact, that is what he promises his people when the split of the two “tribes”. He told all the littluns that he promises feasts of meat every night and a lot of fun. In chapter five of Lord of the Flies gives a great idea of how Ralph is like as a leader. When he calls the littluns with the conch shell and has to remind the littluns about the rules he says, “‘The rules!’ shouted Ralph. ‘You’re breaking the rules!’” (Golding 108). In this event, Piggy was holding the conch and the others weren’t respecting

In the book Lord of the Flies leadership is a big role. Many people today say they’d be a good leader, but, they don’t play out to make a good leader. Jack and Ralph are the two main leaders in the book Lord of the Flies. A good leader takes responsibility, has good communication skills, and motivates their team. The most effective and consistent leader in the book is Ralph. He’s always trying to find ways to make things better. Jack tries his hardest, but isn’t as good as Ralph is. Ralph is very open when he wants to say something to the boys. For example, in the book he says, “fear can’t hurt you any more than a dream”, which means he’s being honest about what he’s talking about. A dream can’t hurt you. For example, in the book Jack says, “I am going to make rules and whoever breaks them shall be punished”. This is not what a good leader would say.

I think a leader should be open minded and should be able to accept new ideas and new perspectives. A leader should be more optimistic and have hope. Being trustworthy is a great quality a leader should possess and should be able to demonstrate. A leader also needs to be trusted.

There are two young boys, Ralph and Jack who want to be the leader of a group of young boys that landed on an island when they were forced to leave their homes from war. Based on the content of Lord of the Flies, I believe that Ralph would be the best choice for being leader because he listens to what others have to say, he likes to plan ahead, and he cares about the safety of others.

"Leaders are people who are able to express themselves fully…they know who they are, what their strengths and weaknesses are, and how to fully deploy their strengths and compensate for their weaknesses. They also know what they want, why they want it, and how to communicate what they want to others in order to gain their cooperation and support. Finally they know how to achieve their goals" (Ingram, 2004).

A leader needs to “believe” in oneself and have the confidence that whatever you say will excite and what you do can motivate others. You must be optimistic about what you do, do have some relevance for being in existence. Believe it or not, “leadership begins with you”.

So, first and foremost quality of a leader is not only to see at high things but also make the people see and strive for the same thing. For this purpose, they have to monitor even minor things by making people feel valued and inspired. A good