Chapter 12: Sweden’s Covid-19 Strategy from a Leadership Perspective: Importance of Trust and Role Models

Leadership in the event of accidents and public crises means leading under ­pressure. In these situations, leaders move from an everyday context to a riskier zone characterized by uncertainty and ambiguity. Effective leaders who are able to manage both these contexts form a vital prerequisite for success. During severe crises, expectations are high on leaders, and as stated in the Guardian, “crisis has defined political leaders” (Smee, 2020). Crisis management “is an ongoing process to prevent or reduce negative consequences involving activities before, during and after a crisis” (Hede, 2018, p. 4). Leaders in crisis management often have to manage two different contexts, the normal and the crisis context (Boin, ’t Hart, Stern, & Sundelius, 2016). Also, the leader must lead within his/her own organization while at the same time collaborating with other organizations (Uhr, 2017). All of this is often performed under the watchful eye of society and the media, placing extra strain on the leader. To be able to lead in this way requires that the most visible leaders in a crisis set a good example. The purpose of this chapter is to analyze the Swedish leadership during the Covid-19 pandemic from a leadership perspective. In particularly I am interested in discussing the Swedish leadership during the Covid-19 pandemic in terms of trust, indirect leadership and destructive leadership. Here, the leaders referred to politicians at national levels (e.g., Prime Minister and government ministers) as well as director-generals (e.g., the head of a government agency) and other prominent representatives for government agencies (e.g., Folkhälsomyndigheten – FHM in Swedish). In the rest of this chapter, I will first describe how Sweden coped with the Covid-19 pandemic. Then I will discuss the leadership literature in which the Swedish leadership during the covid-19 pandemic is captured.