The Interaction of Leader Gender and Country Collectivism on COVID-19 Deaths

The COVID-19 pandemic has created unprecedented challenges for employees and leaders. The pandemic has resulted in millions of deaths world-wide and changed the way people live and work. Until this public health crisis is controlled, employers and human resource managers will not be able to return to anything resembling a normal pre-pandemic work situation. Based on a sample of 56 countries, the present study examines two factors – leader (i.e., head of state) gender and national collectivism – to explain how some leaders have been able to manage the pandemic with less death than others during the COVID-19 pandemic. Countries with female presidents respond differently to the pandemic than those led by male presidents, resulting in fewer deaths. The results shed light on the person-environment fit between president gender and country collectivistic culture by demonstrating that male presidents leading more individualistic countries suffer from the highest levels of COVID-19 death. Supplemental qualitative analyses on transcripts of speeches delivered by world leaders show that presidents of more collectivistic countries use more health-related words than presidents of more individualistic countries when addressing the public, which suggests that health is more front-of-mind for leaders in more collectivistic nations. Additional analyses of media attention related to presidents’ handling of COVID-19 also show that media sentiment was more favorable for women leaders compared to men leaders. Also, consistent with our prediction, men leading more individualistic countries had the least positive media attention.