Do the hunters see Ralph as a leader in Golding's Lord of the Flies?

To answer this, we should look at what we might consider to be evidence of a character being viewed as a leader;

• They can be specifically acclaimed as a leader, essentially by another character saying "You're our leader."


• Their leadership, however we define it, is acknowledged through obedience and action.


• They are appealed to for their leadership, such as arbitration in an argument.

The hunters vacillate between seeing Ralph as a leader, and seeing Jack as a leader. They don't seem willing to speak out against either person except through omission or anonymity. For example, during the first election, it's pretty clear that the choir boys (soon to be hunters) don't actually want Jack as their chief, and they only vote for him under the threat of his immediate attention, and they applaud Ralph's election. Later, when Jack calls for Ralph to be ousted, none of the boys vote for it. Likewise, they speak against Ralph during the assembly in Chapter 5, but mostly by shouting or muttering protests against Ralph's rules. 

Furthermore, the hunters don't show nearly as much enthusiasm for their responsibilities as Jack himself does, and Jack isn't a very good hunter at first. The fact that Jack is easily the most capable of them doesn't bode very well for the skills of the rest. At first, the hunters are mostly a liability because they not only lack skill, but they lack motivation to prove themselves in the way that Jack does; instead, they abandon their duties and go swimming. Nevertheless, they want to enjoy the honor of being called hunters too, relying on this title and its presumed importance to defend themselves against Ralph's criticism. 

Thus, we can probably say that most of the hunters don't really see Ralph as a real leader; they are simply too passive-aggressive to assert what they really want, and they follow whomever compels their obedience in the manner they most respond to. At the beginning of the story, they are eager to shrug off Jack's leadership because they see it as bullying, but by the end of the story they're eager for his leadership because he enforces his will with tangible punishments and rewards.