Ralph: Was He a Good Leader? Anonymous 8th Grade

As First Lady Rosalynn Carter once said, “A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don’t necessarily want to go, but ought to be,” applies to many leaders and one of them is Ralph. In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, a herd of school boys are stranded on an unknown island. There is no adult supervision and the boys are left to fend for themselves. Ralph is chosen as leader and rules come to be formed. However, this civilization doesn’t last long and the group disperses, most following Jack into savagery while a few stay with Ralph. Indeed, Ralph wasn’t a great leader who could take people where they don’t want to go but ought to be. If Ralph had possessed better leadership qualities, taken his thinking into action, and placed himself in the other boys’ shoes and considered what the boys would want, the civilization entrusted to him wouldn’t have broken down.

An important point is that Ralph didn’t bring himself to consider the other boys’ thoughts before saying things that would affect the social well-being of the island. Boys at the ages of about 6 through 12 would want fun and pleasure, and at the same time they need some boundary to their fun and some organization; nonetheless,...