Leadership Styles in Crisis Management: Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic

• Allen E. Lemay & Jennifer D. Richardson 1Bharathiar University, India 2University of Perpetual Help System Dalta, Las Piñas, Philippines

  1Bharathiar University, India 2University of Perpetual Help System Dalta, Las Piñas, Philippines

  Author

The COVID-19 pandemic represented an unprecedented exogenous shock to global governance and organizational functionality, providing a unique opportunity to analyze leadership effectiveness under systemic duress.¹ This paper analyzes empirical evidence across organizational and national levels to identify effective and detrimental leadership styles utilized during this period. We confirm that the initial phase of the crisis triggered a surge in Directive Leadership (DL), consistent with the threat-rigidity hypothesis.² However, sustained effectiveness and organizational resilience required a rapid and intentional shift toward Transformational (TL) and Supportive/Emotive Leadership to maintain employee psychological capital and adaptive capacity.¹ At the national level, outcomes were significantly determined not solely by policy stringency, but by political leadership quality, trust, State Capacity ⁴, and cultural dimensions. Pragmatic, evidence-based responses were correlated with favorable outcomes, whereas populist approaches that rejected expert advice were associated with disproportionately high mortality rates.⁵ The overarching conclusion is that effective crisis leadership is fundamentally contingent and adaptive, demanding that leaders fluidly modulate between task-oriented command and people-oriented support, prioritizing psychological safety, transparent communication, and systemic flexibility over rigid command-and-control structures.⁶

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