Master thesis | Crisis and Security Management (MSc)
open access
The research in this thesis will investigate which different leadership communication styles and traits there are, whether they are connected to gender, and to what extent they influence public...Show moreThe research in this thesis will investigate which different leadership communication styles and traits there are, whether they are connected to gender, and to what extent they influence public trust in government during a crisis. More specifically, the thesis answers the following research question: “How do male and female leadership communication styles affect trust in government during the COVID-19 pandemic?”. The relevance for this is the importance of leadership and communication in times of crisis and whether these have explanatory power for influencing public trust. The thesis starts by investigating expectations about leadership communication connected to gender. Then it goes on to exploring female and male styles in leadership communication and additional existing feminine and masculine traits. This is applied to speeches of prime ministers in four different countries in which a comparison can be made between two smaller and two larger countries. The research found that gendered leadership communication does influence trust in government. Even more, when controlling for infection rates in the levels of trust, there still was a difference in the outcome of trust, which is attributed to the actual communication in practice.Show less
