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ABSTRACT
Crises are a time when people look to their political leaders for action. For a President who was a master of shaping political narratives, COVID-19 offered an opportunity to use his messaging skills to steer the public response. Instead, COVID-19 revealed Trump’s long-standing inability to manage governance processes reflected in a series of failures in decision-making, communication, collaboration, and coordination and control. This article examines leadership qualities needed to successfully manage crisis and compares those qualities to President Trump’s actions during the COVID-19 pandemic. The case reveals how the lack of presidential leadership left the United States in a position of failure, characterized by high case rates, deaths, and an ongoing inability to establish a basic national consensus on how to respond to the pandemic.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
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Notes on contributors
Naim Kapucu
Naim Kapucu, PhD, is Pegasus professor of public administration and policy and former director of the School of Public Administration at the University of Central Florida (UCF). He is also Joint faculty at the School of Politics, Security, and International Affairs. His research interests are emergency and crisis management, decision-making in complex environments, network governance, leadership, and methodology.
Donald Moynihan
Donald Moynihan, PhD, is the inaugural McCourt Chair at the McCourt School of Public Policy. His research examines how to improve how government works. He examines the behavioural effects of efforts to improve public sector outcomes through government reform, as well as the administrative burdens people encounter in their interactions with government.