Why The Traits Of Female Leadership Are Better Geared For The Global Pandemic
October 11, 2020
The gist:
Here’s one of the many articles surfacing, brining the studies and statistics to light of exactly how (much) impact female global leadership had on their Countiries pandemic response.
This particular study showed their out-performing impact in two ways (with data through May 2020.)
Countries with womxn leaders had:
a lower number of positive Covid-19 cases
and a lower number of Covid-19 related deaths.
To avoid this phenomenon being chalked up to coincidence, “the data analysis included controls for other factors, such as GDP per capita, the population, the size of the urban population, and the proportion of elderly adults. And…
“Their findings demonstrated that Covid-19 related outcomes are systematically better in countries led by women.”
Here are a few more numbers:
the average number of cases for male-led countries was 26,333
for women-led countries, the average number of cases was 16,806.
the average number of deaths was 1,994 in male-led countries
the average number of deaths was 1,056 in female-led countries
What was the reason cited in the report, by it’s author, Professor Uma Kambhampati:
The gender differences in leadership explain the variances in the results, particularly the way in which female leaders make decisions.
Leaders of countries with lower rates of Covid-19 acted more decisively and quickly; "the issue is the women politicians seem to figure out very early on that there was an issue for lives, and irrespective of what was happening to the economy, it was essential to shut down quickly and decisively."
Women have a lower threshold for ambiguity, which is different from risk, which may help them tackle so called “wicked problems…issues that do not have a straight-forward resolution and cannot be quickly resolved.”
That definitely sounds like what we do, and the complex issues we deal with, even just in our family lives. And, basically, what we have been doing…forever.
Now, think of how the numbers in this pandemic would have come out, with more of ‘that kind of leadership.’ Then multiply that by (every major crisis since…)
Read the Forbes article by Shaheena Janjuha-Jivraj, here.
Composite: Reuters/Getty/Rex/Shutterstock