Female leaders step up in Covid-19 fight
APPARENTLY seven countries that have, to date, some of the best Covid-19 responses have one thing in common — female leaders. Germany (Angela Merkel), Taiwan (Tsai Ing-wen), New Zealand (Jacinda Ardern), Norway (Erna Solberg), Denmark (Mette Frederiksen), Iceland (Kalun Jakobsdottir), and Finland (Sanna Marin) have demonstrated that in times of crisis women can lead.
Glass cliff competency
These leaders are showing the world that women can step up to the plate, hold their own and be equal to the task, no matter how steep the glass cliff might get.
Demonstrating decisiveness, problem-solving ability, truth, empathy, love and compassion, as well as being tech savvy, the seven female leaders have been swift in their leadership.
‘Big men’ showed up
According to the Forbes magazine, this is impressively illustrious compared to “strongmen using the crisis to accelerate a terrifying trifecta of authoritarianism: blame others, capture the judiciary, demonise the journalists and blanket their country in I-will-never-retire darkness (Trump, Bolsanaro, Modi... Netanyahu...).”
Facing up to the Truth
The Forbes magazine captures how Chancellor Merkel ( pictured below) stood up early, calmly and remarkably faced up to the truth, telling her country that this was a serious bug and that they needed to take it seriously. They did. While other countries wallowed in denial and dithered, Germany began testing from the get-go.
The country’s deaths at 2 673 deaths are far below its European neighbours.
Swift & decisive
Decisiveness also shone through when Tsai Ing-wen made moves in haste in Taiwan. At the first sign of illness in January, she introduced 124 measures to block the spread. Tsai managed what CNN has called “among the world’s best responses”, keeping the epidemic under control and still standing at six deaths only. In New Zealand, in yet another demonstration of swift action, leader Jacinda Adern was early to lock down the country and crystal clear on the maximum level of alert she was putting the country under and why. She imposed self-isolation on people entering New Zealand very early, when there were just six cases in her country and banned foreigners entirely from entering soon after.
To date, her country has four deaths.
Innovation and tech savvy
In Norway, Solberg, among other measures, innovatively employed the use of television to talk directly to her country’s children. She was building on the press conference that Denmark’s Frederiksen — equally decisive and swift in her own country — had held earlier. Denmark has 260 deaths while Norway 98.
Sanna Marin, a 34-year-old, became the world’s youngest Head of State when Finland elected her last December. As a millennial leader, she has spearheaded a countrywide campaign using social media influencers as key agents in fighting the Covid-19 pandemic. Finland has 49 deaths.
Free coronavirus testing
Under the leadership of Jakobsdottir, Iceland is offering free coronavirus testing to all its citizens. Most countries have limited testing focused only on people with symptoms. Therefore, Iceland’s approach makes it a great case study. The country presently has only eight deaths.
Both men and women leaders needed
This lays bare, once again, the positive case for women in apex leadership positions. The world needs both female and male leaders, not just one gender.
Having both genders at the leadership table can be effective in leveraging on diversity of strengths, traits, characteristics, behaviours and approaches. Men can, and women also can. And depending on particular situations, traits and approaches, women can fare even comparatively better.
These assertions are not without evidence. They are consistent with, among others, results of a global survey by McK- insey and Company undertaken in Septem- ber 2009, which found that with a con- siderable number of leaders at the executive level, organisations are more likely to fare better in critical moments.
Navigating through a crisis
McKinsey survey established that leadership behaviours more frequently adopted by women leaders are critical to navigating through a crisis and beyond.
In particular, according to the survey, women leaders fare better than their male counterparts in five types of leadership behaviours that improve organisational performance (both in stable times and crisis times).
These types of behaviours are: people development; participative decision-making; inspiration; role modelling; and expectations and rewards.
Inspiration and innovation critical
According to McKinsey and Company in their Women Matter publication edition three, which captured the survey under discussion, “The ability to present inspiring vision of the future and create optimism around its implementation is the most important behaviour type to navigate through (a) crisis.”
And this is one of the key areas women leaders are particularly strong at, among critical others, the McKinsey and Company report found.
Leadership needs post-Covid-19
With the coronavirus wreaking havoc across the globe, and organisations, companies and economies being shaken to the very core of their existence, careful and deliberate navigation of effects and possible solutions and performance during and after the crisis by nations, companies and organisations is going to need all the able, capable and available leadership that can be mobilised and harnessed; and whose skills, competencies and orientations can be banked on.
What does such leadership look like? That leadership can only be diverse, inclusive and transformative. In my book, this can only be harnessed from both sides of the gender axis. Both. Inclusive. Diverse. Transformative. That’s right!
◆ Maggie Mzumara is a leadership, communication and media strategist as well as corporate trainer. She is a strong advocate of women’s leadership and is founder of the Success in Stilettos (SiS) Seminar Series — a leadership development platform for women. She is a diversity trainer and also an unconscious bias trainer. She can be reached at maimzumara@yahoo.com or followed on Twitter @magsmzumara.