Leadership in Lord of the Flies

The novel Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, focuses on a group of English school boys who are stranded on an island due to a plane crash. They soon learn of each other's existence when one of the older boys, Ralph, blows a conch shell and holds the first of many meetings. Along with Ralph, there are a group of choir boys, a group of younger boys who they start to call "littluns", and an intelligent, civilized young boy named Piggy. The boys decide to vote Ralph as "chief." But, there is a problem. The choir boys already have a leader-Jack. Jack feels that he is more qualified than Ralph and should be the leader of the boys. The boys stick to their decision, since Ralph was the one who brought them together. As the reader continues to read through the novel, he/she can see that Golding uses the two of the main characters, Ralph and Jack, to contrast the different leadership qualities.

The qualities of a good leader are universally accepted. The leader has to have control over his followers. He has to demand respect. The leader also has to be able to persuade his followers to follow him without taking away from his beliefs. A good leader also has to be able to be strong, mentally more than physically. He needs to be able to stand his ground and strongly believe in what he feels is right. A good leader also has to believe in himself. If a leader does not believe in himself, then who will? A leader has to lay out his rules and demand that he and his followers follow them and if not, they will be punished. A leader has to be assertive and does not need to back down from anything. The two main characters in this novel express some of these characteristics, one character more than the other.

The first leader that Golding shows to the reader is Ralph. He is presented to the reader as a handsome young man who is not afraid of anything and likes to have fun. Since he is the one who blows the conch, the boys automatically designate him as "chief." Ralph starts off as a great leader who knows what has to be done in order for survival, knows to assign certain people certain jobs, and knows they need to be rescued as quickly as possible. He knows they need to have fire for cooking and to create smoke to use as a signal to get the attention of the fighter jets overhead or the cruiser ships in the sea. The first mistake Ralph makes is giving Jack total control over the choir boys. The second mistake is making the choir boys totally in control of the hunting and the fire. This allows Jack and the choir boys make their own rules and Jack encourages the boys to not follow Ralph's rules. This makes the choir boys see Jack as a better leader and they start to stray away from Ralph. As for the "littluns," they love Ralph. They love his ideas and think that they are the best ideas they have ever heard. When Ralph asks the littluns to help carry out those ideas, they go and play in the water hole. They break the rules and Ralph does nothing about it. Ralph loses control over the boys because he is too forgiving and does not enforce his rules. Even though he had the right intent, he did not have the leadership experience that Jack had and Jack overthrew him

The second leader presented to the reader and the more effective leader is Jack. He came into the novel as the head choir boy. The reader can infer that Jack loves to be the main man in everything he does. He wants to always be number one. He knows how to get others to follow him, and he does