In the novel Lord Of The Flies by William Golding, a group of young boys must learn how to maintain civilization and order when their plane crash lands on a deserted island in the 1950s. They start with a fair and democratic system, but eventually towards the end of the novel they descend into a chaotic dictatorship. The democratic leader, Ralph, prefers to lead with love and compassion. On the flip side, the leader resembling a dictator, Jack, prefers to lead with anger and fear. During Ralph’s rule, no one is purposely hurt or killed, but the way that Jack went about leading was much more effective. When Ralph decided that the best way to eliminate the fear of the unknown on the island was to build huts, he asked for everyone’s help. Most of the boys helped with the first hut, but after that everyone gave up, even though there was still work to do. Ralph gets angry, because even after he has done all the work, no one cares to notice or appreciate it. He says to Jack, “And I work all day with nothing but Simon and you come back and don’t even notice the huts! … People don’t help much” (Golding, page 55), further proving the point that just kindly telling the boys to do the work that they need, is not very effective. Whereas on the opposite side of leadership, Jack is nasty towards his ‘disciples’. He beats them without reason, puts fear into their minds about the other boys, and has them paint their faces to release their ‘savage side’. Although Jack is not a good leader morally, his tribe gets things done. They always have fire, they always have meat, they feel they belong to a community. The tribe always listens to Jack, because they fear that if they don’t they’ll be beaten. When he plots to kill and hunt Ralph, he persuades Samneric, who were in the past Ralph’s only friends, to hunt and hate him as well. Samneric tell Ralph, “You got to go because it’s not safe – they made us. They hurt us … Push off Ralph – it’s a tribe – they made us – we couldn’t help it” (Golding, page 209). Based off how successful Jack was in his leading, it is better to lead with fear rather than love, seeing that as a leader, Jack was able to get more done, and his people followed him without question.
Golding, William. Lord of the flies (white edition). London: Faber and Faber, 1958. Print.

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Personal connection
In my family, my parents prefer to lead with love rather than fear. They are very open and give me lots of freedom when it comes to things that I want to do, so when it comes to certain things I feel comfortable telling them because I know that they will be loving no matter what I say; whereas I know someone who’s parent do not give her freedom at all with what she does, and so she tends to lie and hide things from her parents in fear of getting in trouble. With parenting especially, it is better to lead with love.