Skip to main content

Will the pandemic reshape notions of female leadership?

Editorial / Opinion Piece / Blog Post

Back
June 29, 2020

Will the pandemic reshape notions of female leadership?

Source: Harvard Business Review

Countries with women in leadership have suffered six times fewer confirmed deaths from Covid-19 than countries with governments led by men. Unsurprisingly, the media has swelled with stories of their pragmatism, prowess — and humanity. Will these positive outcomes influence our collective readiness to elect and promote more women into power?

In both business and politics, leaders of the world have spent the past few months facing a real-time leadership test, played out in the full view of an impatient global audience. A huge crisis, unlike anything seen in our lifetimes, renders experience and expertise irrelevant. Leaders today must learn to lockdown and reopen countries while walking the tightrope between balancing the health of their populations with that of their economies. Their evaluations will be as public as their performances. Instantaneous, global, social-media-documented scrutiny puts their every action and every communication in full view. Whatever the future brings, one thing is certain: those in charge will be judged on how they manage this crisis — and nowhere are the stakes higher than in government.

Click here to read the full article published by Harvard Business Review on 26 June 2020.

Focus areas

Countries with women in leadership have suffered six times fewer confirmed deaths from Covid-19 than countries with governments led by men. Unsurprisingly, the media has swelled with stories of their pragmatism, prowess — and humanity. Will these positive outcomes influence our collective readiness to elect and promote more women into power?

In both business and politics, leaders of the world have spent the past few months facing a real-time leadership test, played out in the full view of an impatient global audience. A huge crisis, unlike anything seen in our lifetimes, renders experience and expertise irrelevant. Leaders today must learn to lockdown and reopen countries while walking the tightrope between balancing the health of their populations with that of their economies. Their evaluations will be as public as their performances. Instantaneous, global, social-media-documented scrutiny puts their every action and every communication in full view. Whatever the future brings, one thing is certain: those in charge will be judged on how they manage this crisis — and nowhere are the stakes higher than in government.

Click here to read the full article published by Harvard Business Review on 26 June 2020.

Focus areas