Leadership Styles In Lord Of The Flies

Austin Palmer
Miss Keller
English 2A
February 3, 2023
Leadership styles “Lord of the flies”
A quote by Linus Pauling states “The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas.” In my opinion, good leaders have good ideas. The book Lord of the Flies by William Golding is a young adult fiction about a group of 6-12 year old kids who get stranded on an island with no adults, and have to figure out how to survive. Also they have to figure out who will be the leader on the island because they have people with different outlooks on what to do. The different styles of leadership on the island include those of Ralph which is more reasonable, Jack who is straightforward, and Piggy who has the best ideas. Overall, I think that the best would

Jack is an autocratic leader because the other people on the island will do what he asked them to do, but that fails a lot since he puts his own strength over the others. William Golding states this in chapter 4 when Ralph was yelling at Jack for hunting and not helping him out. "There was a ship--" One of the smaller hunters began to wail. The dismal truth was filtering through to everybody. Jack went very red as he hacked and pulled at the pig. "The job was too much. We needed everyone." Ralph turned. " You could have had everyone when the shelters were finished. But you had to hunt--". (Golding, Pg. 71) This quote proves that Jack cares more about himself than the rest of the people in the group because he took everyone to help him hunt, and didn’t complete little things that needed to be done. This is why Jack is the worst leader. But there were two other leadership styles on the island, and one of those is

Ralph is a good looking 12 year old that found the conch in the first chapter and blew it. Pretty much from then on he was the leader. Ralph was a Democratic leader because he welcomes and values other people's input and he relies on team participation. Golding in chapter 3 talks about how Ralph gets mad when other people will not help him. "And they keep running off. You remember the meeting? How everyone was going to work hard until the shelters were finished?" "Except me and my hunters--" "Except the hunters. Well, the littluns are--" He gesticulated, sought for a word. "They're hopeless. The older ones aren't much better. D'you see? All day I've been working with Simon. No one else. They're off bathing, or eating, or playing." (Golding, Pg. 50) This quote proves that Ralph needs people to help him. If people start to help him he will have an easier time to decide what to do next. Ralph was a great leader on the island but the best was