Broadening Our Perspective

Abstract This chapter focuses on Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s leadership during the Ebola epidemic. This health crisis is considered a gender congruent crisis type. The chapter assesses media reports and public statements from 2014 through 2016 (when Ebola cases were eradicated). In the context of Ebola in Liberia, we find that in contrast to the COVID-19 pandemic, Johnson Sirleaf initially framed Ebola both as an economic and an internal security crisis—stereotypically masculine frames. Johnson Sirleaf’s domestic leadership of the Ebola response was quite unilateral. Direction giving dominated her domestic crisis communication throughout, while empathy and meaning-making played negligible roles in her communication. The analysis confirms the book’s theory. Despite the gender-congruent crisis type, Johnson Sirleaf’s gender-incongruent issue framing, leadership style, and crisis communication resulted in a decline in domestic public approval ratings.