Are Female Leaders Statistically Better At Handling The Coronavirus Crisis?

Recently women have been praised for their leadership during the pandemic. Headlines like “Women leaders are doing a disproportionately great job at handling the pandemic. So why aren't there more of them?” from CNN;  “Female world leaders hailed as voices of reason amid the coronavirus chaos,” from the Washington Post and “Female World Leaders Are Handling Coronavirus Crisis ‘In A Really Impressive Manner,' Experts Say” from USA Today, suggest we should all move to female-led countries to avoid exposure to the virus.

But are women really doing a better job than men leading during this crisis? Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany has been justifiably praised for controlling the virus in her country, but not all female leaders are faring quite as well. Germany’s neighbor, Belgium, also headed by a woman, has the grim distinction of having the highest death rate per capita in the E.U. and the second highest in the world. And Las Vegas’s female mayor told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that it’s time to open her city’s casinos, because the Ebola epidemic prepared the casinos for the safe handling of COVID-19. It seems some female leaders may be handling the situation better than others.

Are Female Leaders Statistically Faring Better In The Pandemic?

If lower death rates are the ultimate goal of today’s leaders, then statistically, female leaders aren’t doing any better than their male counterparts.  For E.U. countries, the median death rate per capita in female-led countries isn’t statistically different from the median death rate in male-led countries. In the U.S., there is also no significant difference between median per capita death rates for states with female governors and those with male governors.  In other words, women aren’t statistically doing better than their male counterparts in keeping down the number of deaths. But death rates depend on many variables, including population density, accessibility of healthcare, reporting protocols and possibly temperature and humidity levels, so it’s tricky to isolate the impact of the sex of the leader.

In reality, there are excellent female and male leaders guiding their constituents through this crisis, and there are male and female leaders who are struggling. Attributing the accomplishments of female leaders to their sex can be detrimental and can detract from the value of the contribution. One interpretation of the praise is that it’s unusual or surprising that women are doing a good job leading in such a challenging situation. It can also reinforce stereotypes that the differences between men and women are much larger than they actually are, a distinction that many women running for office may want to avoid.

On the other hand, highlighting the contributions of these women can be helpful. Exposure to female leaders can encourage young women to consider political careers, and leaders everywhere can learn from their example. We’ve certainly been learning from plenty of male exemplars for years.  But, it’s important not to suggest that an extra X chromosome is the cause for success.

Research On Gender Differences In Leadership Style

Absent any statistical evidence, why has all this attention been focused on the successes of female leaders? Although research has found no gender differences in the effectiveness of leaders, research indicates men and women often have different leadership styles. The current crisis may have made this stylistic difference more noticeable.

Alice Eagly, an Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Northwestern University, has researched sex differences in leadership style by aggregating all the studies available on the topic and completing a meta-analysis or study of studies.  “The most robust sex differences that I found in leadership style are women’s greater tendency toward participative, relational leadership, and men’s toward more top-down, autocratic leadership.” Leaders who are participative are more collaborative and include subordinates and outsiders in their decision-making. Eagly believes that this participative style would be more productive in the current crisis, describing, “In the U.S., the president has to work with governors and mayors, who would in turn ideally work well with community leaders. And political leaders have to consult with private sector leaders to produce masks and ventilators. And of course there are scientific experts whose knowledge is crucial. These aren’t situations in which one leader has autocratic power over another leader. So, this particular crisis is not a situation that can be controlled top-down, as our president has found,” she says.

Eagly also points out that psychology research has found that women tend to be more communal than men, exhibiting more compassion and caring, and that this trait may also be helpful in the current crisis. She describes, “A leader can gain credibility from conveying empathy with those who are suffering from the disease or mourning the deaths of friends and family as well as giving heartfelt thanks to health care personnel and first responders.”

Eagly warns, however, of oversimplifying the traits required to be a successful leader during the current crisis. It’s not all about compassion and relational qualities, but also involves being able to understand and evaluate scientific evidence, something that female Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has been praised for.

It’s important to remember that these gender differences are generalizations, and certainly don’t apply to all women or all men. Each leader should be evaluated on their own strengths and weaknesses, and not on their gender.