What Is Leadership in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic?

A Reflection by Public Health Leadership Coalition’s Member – Prof. Luís Eugênio de Souza

Leadership can be defined as the collection of competences – knowledge, skills and aptitudes – through which a group, sharing core beliefs, creates or adapts a vision to a specific context and enable – directly or indirectly – its implementation.

During a pandemic, the most essential work of a leader is to empower citizens and communities. To accomplish this work, a very special type of leadership is more efficient than individual leadership: a “leadership coalition”, that is, a dynamic and collective process in which a team of technically competent, ethically responsible and socially committed people work together to promote a democratic and evidence-informed policymaking process that can lead to the implementation of effective public health interventions.

The leadership coalition is all the more important as far-reaching changes are needed. As it becomes clear that humanity will not overcome the current multiple crisis – health, social, economic – without changing the unsustainable, predatory and unfair ways in which it deals with nature and with all social groups – especially the most vulnerable -, the relevance and urgency of shared and distributed leadership is evident.

It is important to keep in mind that the COVID-19 crisis is more than a pandemic, it is a syndemic, that is, a complex phenomenon that involves adverse and synergistic interactions between different diseases and precarious social conditions. To overcome this critical situation, the world needs shared and distributed leadership, involving people and teams from the most diverse sectors, such as health and social assistance, environment, economy, etc.

The Public Health Leadership Coalition, led by the World Federation of Public Health Associations (WFPHA), embraces the value of health as a human right and equity as the primary approach to ensuring health for all. Through its activities, it contributes ideas and advocacy practices for multilateral organizations, national governments and local civil society organizations to adopt and implement evidence-informed policies to combat the syndemic.

More specifically, the Public Health Leadership Coalition advocates equitable access to Covid-19 vaccines between and within countries, the adoption of a Pandemic Treaty that improves preparedness and response to health emergencies, strengthening national health systems, and greater professional recognition of health workers.

Undoubtedly, achieving these goals is not easy, given the opposition of powerful agents such as large companies that benefit from predatory activities of nature and concentrating wealth. However, maintaining the current status quo is impossible, as it is incompatible with preserving life on Earth. Change is necessary and possible!