Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission and the first woman to hold the position, recently ranked first on the Forbes 2022 list of the “World’s 100 Most Powerful Women.” Forbes credited von der Leyen’s rise from the No. 8 spot in 2021 to her handling of the war in Ukraine and the covid-19 pandemic, two crises that have tested the leadership of political executives around the world.
Our research speaks to how female leaders like von der Leyen deal with big crises such as covid-19. It suggests that leadership traits that have often been stereotypically associated with female leaders — such as building consensus and communicating openly — are very effective in managing such crises. Their successes stand out in stark contrast to the covid-19 responses of global leaders like Donald Trump or Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro.
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Von der Leyen’s success matches what we would expect
When von der Leyen launched the E.U. covid response team on March 2, 2020, she described the pandemic as a crisis that required both “very swift action” and “strong coordination at all the levels and all the different sectors — not only on the European level but of course on the national level.” Von der Leyen heads an organization representing 27 member nations, and this role requires her to be particularly adept at consensus-building. Forbes identified this trait as one of the contributing factors in the effectiveness of her crisis management.
This point harks back to an early media narrative during the pandemic that women-led countries were more successful in responding to covid-19. Are women better leaders than men during public health crises? Not necessarily. But our research shows how stereotypically female leadership style traits — which can be adopted by men or women — help explain many of the successes experienced by global leaders during the pandemic.
We conducted interviews with 45 leading politicians, civil servants, medical professionals and local journalists in New Zealand and Iceland to investigate how decision-making unfolded at the most senior levels in these women-led countries during the covid-19 pandemic.
We identified six elements of leadership and crisis management, in particular, that helped lead to success in these two countries: consensus-oriented governance; honest and frequent communication; enabling agile and adaptive institutions; deference to the advice of scientific experts; collective and decisive action; and guiding policies through empathy and humility. While these governing tools are not necessarily gendered, people often associate them with female leadership.
Other leaders displayed the same characteristics
Von der Leyen wasn’t the only coalition executive to make it to the top of the Forbes list. Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank and also the first woman to hold her role, is ranked No. 2. In a year marked by crises, it’s no coincidence that the leaders who rely on consensus-building (whether out of necessity or desire) have proven to be among the most effective.
How New Zealand and 5 other nations gained majority-female legislatures
Of the heads of government listed on this 2022 Forbes list, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern comes in at No. 3. In our interviews, Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson described Ardern’s leadership as “decisive, inclusive and practical,” and characterized her communication as “wearing facts, openness and compassion.”
Iceland Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir shared with us that her approach to managing covid-19 was to be “ready to admit mistakes and do things differently” if the evidence on the table presented the need to change course. “Obviously we really didn’t know a lot about this virus in the beginning and so we just tried to admit that,” she explained. “We were faced with an unknown … and we had to be ready to say OK, if this isn’t working — we are going to change our strategy.”
Are women leaders better at fighting the coronavirus?
Good leaders are willing to correct mistakes
Crises often require leaders to pivot — and pivoting requires self-awareness, humility and a strong team around the leader who can call them out when it’s time to change course. These were some of the trademark characteristics of Ardern and Jakobsdóttir’s leadership, we found. These were also the traits that were noticeably lacking in administrations that stumbled in responding to the pandemic, including the responses of President Trump and Brazilian President Bolsonaro.
As governments around the world, including in the United States, begin to turn their focus away from covid-19 and toward other pressing domestic and national security concerns, they might look to the last two years for lessons on leadership. What are the big takeaways?
Crisis management, whether related to public health, national security, the economy or something else entirely, requires a diversified toolbox of leadership traits, our study found. This certainly includes decisiveness, strength and resolve — characteristics that von der Leyen, Jakobsdóttir and Ardern have in spades — but it also includes consensus-building and other often-overlooked leadership approaches stereotypically associated with female leaders. Some research suggests that the entrance of women into executive office historically has initiated a change in leadership style for their successors, prompting a shift toward what we define as good leadership — during a crisis or otherwise.
Of course, both men and women can apply these leadership traits. The entrance of more women into top political positions around the world can encourage a diversification of leadership styles, expanding the toolbox for best practices during a crisis — for all global leaders.
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Katie Tyner is a senior associate at The Cohen Group in Washington, DC. Her research focuses on political leadership, democratic backsliding/decay, gender and politics, and political institutions.
Dr. Farida Jalalzai is associate dean for global initiatives and engagement in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences and professor of political science at Virginia Tech, focusing on the role of gender in the political arena including women national leaders. She is the author of Shattered Cracked or Firmly Intact: Women and Executive Glass Ceiling Worldwide (Oxford University Press, 2013) Women Presidents of Latin America: Beyond Family Ties (Routledge, 2016), and Women’s Empowerment and Disempowerment in Brazil (with Pedro A. G. dos Santos, Temple University Press, 2021).