You may have seen a recent Forbes article that highlighted the women leaders around the world doing a great job (as Trump would say) during this pandemic.
As we already know, women are the best at everything. So why don’t we have more women leaders? (I would like to omit Theresa May and Arlene Foster from this list before we get into it).
Although some male leaders would like you think they are consistently doing a good job, their female counterparts are simply doing much better and haven’t yet instructed us to drink bleach.
Let’s go through a few of them.
NEW ZEALAND
Jacinda Ardern was elected as the leader of New Zealand in 2017. From then, she has led the country through a terror attack, a volcano eruption, gave birth to a daughter and is now leading New Zealand through a worldwide pandemic.
She has been cited as probably the best leader during this global pandemic, keeping New Zealand deaths at a total of 19 (as of today) and placing the entire country on strict lockdown.
An interesting fact about Jacinda is that she is a PR graduate (the best people are in my humble opinion) and is probably the most effective leader on the planet right now.
She has been direct and clear with her communication and also empathetic, which is something that has proven to be popular at this current time. Empathy is something that seems to be lacking from our male leaders around the world.
New Zealand has been on a very strict lockdown for a number of weeks, with no one being able to enter the country, and no online ordering or eCommerce of any kind.
Restrictions are starting to ease this week and it will be interesting to see what happens once restrictions do become looser and tourists start to enter. I do worry that New Zealand won’t be able to control the virus once this happens.
FINLAND
Finland’s leader is 34-year-old Sanna Marin, the youngest leader to ever be elected across the world. Marin has been praised during this crisis for her communications strategy, including influencers as one of the main mediums for news.
Last week I posted a blog about this influencer strategy and whether influencers could help flatten the curve.
In my opinion, I think this is a great move and also a forward-thinking move from Marin that other countries across the world will also begin to adapt in time.
Leaders and politicians must realize that not everyone watches the news in today’s world and a lot of us get our information from social media. I get my news from Twitter. If it’s not trending on Twitter then it didn’t happen.
A number of influencers have been selected and provided health updates from the government that they are able to share with their following if they so wish. They won’t be paid for sharing the information and the government have to trust that the influencers will share the correct information.
Can we trust influencers with such vital and important information?
GERMANY
Germany has been quite successful in its battle with coronavirus. Angela Merkel is very well known in the world of politics and is someone I would be confident in leading me and where I live in a crisis such as this.
With her knowledge and experience, she is very factual in her briefings and communications and puts those that she governs, at ease. Added to this, Merkel also has a background in medicine which I’m sure only adds to her handling and understanding of the situation.
Often known for her unemotional leadership style, empathy has been key in Merkel’s approach to COVID-19. As I said above with Ardern of New Zealand, women leaders are proving to be the most successful during this pandemic as they have been more empathetic than their male counterparts.
TAIWAN
Taiwan, like New Zealand, enforced strict measures from the outset of the pandemic with 124 measures in total. The outcome of this has been one of the best countries that have dealt with the pandemic and have only recorded 6 deaths in total.
After being hit quite badly by the SARS outbreak in 2003, Taiwan have one of the best healthcare systems in the world, and not wanting a repeat of what happened in 2003, quickly put the 124 sanctions in place, to help stop the spread of the virus.
Since Taiwan has executed such a great response, with thanks to its female leader Tsai Ing-wen, the country has been able to help others around the world by sending face masks and sharing their tracking technology.
Taiwan are currently showing us what a post-COVID-19 world looks like, with citizens being assessed for their temperatures before entering buildings, restaurants more spaced out between customers and phones being tracked.
Who run the world? Girls. Bye.
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