Lord Of The Flies Ralph Leadership Analysis

Exiled from the group, Ralph attempts to survive alone and hides from the same boys that had been under his leadership just a few days ago. In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, a group of young British boys become stranded on an uninhabited island. Initially, a boy named Ralph is elected as the leader of the group. However, as the story progresses, the group spirals into chaos and savagery. In the beginning, Ralph serves as an effective leader through the initial stages of the boys’ time on the island. Though Ralph originally only demonstrates few detrimental leadership traits, Ralph is quickly shown to be unable to handle the group of boys successfully. As in the aforementioned hunt for Ralph, the true effects of Ralph’s sub-par leadership are conveyed through events where the boys descend further into chaos. Overall, Ralph demonstrates an almost excusable amount of traits of an incapable …show more content…
One reason that Ralph is an ineffective leader is that he chooses to isolate certain groups at times in order to please another. Instead, Ralph would be much better off at attempting to retain equality throughout the group rather than catering to specific portions and dividing the boys as a whole. For example, Ralph orders Piggy to remain at the camp in Chapter 1 to please Jack and accomplish more work, despite Piggy’s own wishes. This scene provides a perfect example because despite all Piggy has done to organize the group already, Ralph still blatantly denies his wishes in order to please Jack, who expressed disagreement with Piggy accompanying them on the excursion. Obviously, Ralph dividing his own group is a harmful trait. In fact, according to Notre Dame, an effective leader is able to keep their group together. As previously stated, Ralph is not demonstrating this trait due to his seemingly unintentional division of the