Leadership In Lord Of The Flies by William Golding

What could happen from being on a deserted island with only children to end up resorting to savagery and cannibalism in a matter of months. The novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding demonstrates how quality leadership is a fundamental building block to maintaining a civilized and successful society. When the leadership fell apart, chaos was common, chiefs gave no consequences and the island was under a dictatorship.

To begin, the most important element that should be established when creating a cooperative society is a competent authority. Firstly, the directions that Piggy and Ralph introduced were not exceptional but were efficient enough to keep the island from going into mayhem. Piggy and Ralph wanted to build shelters and keep the fire going while Jack and his crew only desired to “Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood”(pg. 72). Jack was disorganized and acted on emotion over thinking tactically and logically. Secondly, when the conch “exploded into a thousand white fragments”(pg. 200) that was the definite end of Ralph being the boss of the island. The conch was his way of rallying all the people of the island together and when the conch was shattered, Jack had almost everyone on his side. Everything went to chaos after that, from everyone burning the whole forest down searching for Ralph. Ralph's guidance was the only thing that was keeping this island going, and when they took that away, the island fell into disorder and savagery.

Secondly, establishing a sense of accountability in a society is important because one holds people responsible for their actions and what they caused to others. However, in the novel, no leaders ever held anyone responsible for anything they did wrong. Ralph did not hold Jack accountable when Jack let the fire burn out because he wanted to hunt. Jack was not bothered by the fact that the fire was out, as he calmly states “We can light the fire again”(pg. 73). Ralph did not come up with any punishment and that demonstrated to everyone that one could do anything one wanted under Ralph’s command and he would not punish anyone. This allowed Jack to leave Ralph’s supervision and start a new tribe knowing that Ralph could not stop him and that he would not establish dominance. After, Simon was brutally murdered by the savage and wild tribe. Ralph did not hold anyone accountable including himself. He and many other kids were there that night, who could have stopped the beating and he felt like he could not blame anyone else since he was there that night. At that point, Ralph gave up on being a leader when Piggy states “You’re still Chief”(pg. 172). Ralph just laughs, knowing that not being true. Since Ralph never held anyone accountable when that is one of his main roles as leader, people ended up doing evil things such as murder and violence without any consequences.

Thirdly, democracy is the best form of government, and it is used in many countries in the world. In the novel, the boys decided to have more of a dictatorship and that ended up getting people power hungry because they wanted their opinions to be heard. Since the island was under a dictatorship Ralph got the final say on everything. If there was a democracy, it would have allowed Jack’s opinion to be expressed more as he felt like he was under Ralph’s shadow. Jack did not want to “play any longer. Not with you”(pg. 140). Jack wanted to be heard, so he made his new tribe when he was the only person that made decisions. This all would have been avoidable if they made a democracy, the tribe would have been more civilized and the society would have been stronger. Secondly, the tribe was not used to a dictatorship as their home was in England which was a democracy. These people were good people when there were rules that were clear and that they could follow. On the island, it was hard to tell what they could do and what they could not do. They wanted to have rules at the beginning as Jack states “We’ll have rules!”(pg. 32). At first, they wanted to be civilized people but they just abandoned the idea, and in the end, everything went into havoc. If more people’s opinions were heard, people would have felt more involved and their civilization would have sustained longer.

Finally, strong guidance is essential for a successful civilization. The leadership was in a badly orchestrated system of government, there was never any accountability held, and everything went into disaster as the authority fell apart. Leading a group of people is a difficult task that should not be done on one's own. Power can pull the worst qualities of people and make them do unhuman actions such as violence. A poor influence was a central reason why everything went so wrong the way that it did.