A woman's touch: The type of leadership we need during the pandemic
We need more women in leadership positions to show what empathetic and inclusive leadership, writes Melanie Verwoerd.
So here is one thing we know for sure from the COVID-19 pandemic: Those countries who are led by women have done far better in terms of infection and survival rates.
It was something that drew media attention early on in the pandemic, but significant research has now proven the initial anecdotal evidence.
Of course, it is true that those who responded well to the virus were not all women, but as Nic Kristof of the New York Times points out: "Those who bungled the response were all men, and mostly a particular type: Authoritarian, vainglorious and blustering. Think of Boris Johnson in Britain, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Iran and Donald Trump in the United States."
Angela Merkel's Germany had a far lower death rate (4.3%) than Britain (6.5%), France (6%) Italy (15%) and Spain (8.7%).
Finland, whose prime minister Sanna Marin, (who was the youngest world leader ever to be elected) has less than half the mortality rate of neighbouring Sweden. (It is interesting to note that Sanna Marin is in a coalition with four parties – all led by women.)
Astonishingly, Taiwan has only had seven deaths after their president, Tsai Ing-wen, presided over one of the most successful efforts in the world at containing the virus.
Iceland's Katrin Jocobsdottir succeeded in keeping the death rate at 0.5%.
Jacinda Ardern, of New Zealand, did equally well, with only 22 deaths, and declared New Zealand free of COVID on 8 June.
Having compiled statistics from around the world, Kristof came to this astonishing conclusion:
"The male-led countries suffered an average of 214 coronavirus-related deaths per million inhabitants. Those led by women lost only one-fifth as many, 36 per million."
He goes on to say that, if America had the average death rate of the women-led countries, over 100 000 lives would had been saved at the time of his writing.
Of course, many factors might impact on these statistics.
However, an extensive study done by Professor Supriay Garikipati from University of Liverpool and Professor Uma Kambhampati from University of Reading concluded that: "When women-led countries are compared to countries similar to them along a range of characteristics, they have performed better, experiencing fewer cases as well as fewer deaths.
"This is true whether we consider the nearest neighbour, the nearest two, three or even five neighbours. The results are especially highly significant in the case of the number of deaths experienced by female-led countries."
What is unique to women's leadership?
The question is: What was unique to these women's leadership styles that reaped so much more success.
Researchers have pointed to a number of factors:
Firstly, women leaders spoke frankly and openly about the danger of the pandemic. This was in sharp contrast to, for example, Johnson, Trump and Bolsonaro, who all underplayed the seriousness of the pandemic.
Secondly, the women leaders reacted decisively and had early lockdowns. Ardern in New Zealand, for example, instituted a hard lockdown after just six cases were diagnosed and no deaths.
Thirdly, all the female leaders were extremely successful in their communication strategies. They spoke frequently and directly to their citizens, often using unconventional means. Adern had live Facebook chats, open to everyone, during which she responded to their questions informally, but frankly.
Marin used social media influencers to assist her and Norway's prime minister had a press conference exclusively for children.
Compare this to the stiff and defensive press conferences of Trump, Johnson, and even our leaders.
Fourthly, researchers have shown that female leaders were willing to seek a diverse range of advice on how to respond to the pandemic.
It seems that the "men don't ask for directions" stereotype proved true in many male-led countries.
This confirms various leadership studies, which show that women tend to follow a far more inclusive and evidence-based form of leadership than most men.
Most importantly researchers have proved over time that, in general, women leaders show more empathy and are more interpersonally orientated. This, they say, is what was required to deal effectively with this pandemic.
The problem is that in many countries – including our own – we define strong leadership in terms of someone who projects power, acts aggressively, and shows no fear.
We like the traditional male "skiet and donner" approach - of course, something our current president is not fond of.
Effective leadership
Women-led countries have shown, without any doubt, that empathetic and inclusive leadership have had a far better success rate in dealing with this COVID crisis.
However, it might also prove to be the only form of effective leadership as we enter a post-COVID world.
As Amanda Taub of the New York Times pointed out: "That style of leadership may become increasingly valuable. As the consequences of climate change escalate, there will likely be more crises arising out of extreme weather and other natural disasters. Hurricanes and forest fires cannot be intimidated into surrender any more than the virus can. And neither can climate change itself."
So not only should we keep on encouraging more women into leadership, but where there are male leaders, we need to help them discover what strong and effective leadership really looks like.
As Dr Alice Evans from Kings College London said to the New York Times: "What we learned with COVID is that, actually, a different kind of leader can be very beneficial. Perhaps people will learn to recognise and value risk averse, caring and thoughtful leaders."