The Onslaught of Crisis Leadership Advice: Sifting Through Popular Leadership Sources in the COVID-19 Era

This study critiques COVID-19 crisis leadership discourse in authoritative sources for leadership advice including Entrepreneur, Forbes, Fortune, Harvard Business Review, Harvard Business School’s COVID-19 Business Impact Center, and Real Leaders. Two central lines of inquiry drive this study: First, what are the pervasive practice-based recommendations typified in COVID-19 crisis leadership discourse? Second, whose interest does the COVID-19 crisis leadership discourse serve? Conclusions question the widespread practicality of advice and argue that advice functions to reassert the power dynamic of authoritative texts and super leaders over popular crisis leadership press. Furthermore, advice tends to promote command-and-control leadership with implications for taking advantage of the chaotic, vulnerable moments of crises to promote undemocratic change.