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A series of crises and traumatic events, such as the 9/11 attacks and the 2008 global financial crisis, seem to have influenced the environment within which modern political leaders act. We explore the scholarly literature on political leadership and crisis since 2008 to evaluate what sorts of questions are being engaged, and identify some new lines of inquiry. We find several scholars are contributing much insight from the perspective of leadership and crisis management. Several analysts are investigating the politics of crisis from a decentralist perspective, focusing on local leadership in response to challenging events. As well, studying how citizens interpret, respond to, or resist leaders' signals is a developing area of inquiry. While our study reveals some debate about the nature of crisis, and whether the context has changed significantly, most of the scholarship reviewed here holds modern politicians face large challenges in exercising leadership within precarious contexts.

Character is a leadership quality that is often scrutinized yet poorly understood. Our research focuses on several questions relating to character and perceived leader effectiveness during the COVID-19 crisis. First, does the character of the prime minister matter to voters during major crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic? Second, are all dimensions that comprise the leader character framework we examined considered essential for political leadership in times of crisis? Third, is character related to perceptions of leadership effectiveness? Fourth, what role does identification-based trust play in the relationship between character and perceptions of leadership effectiveness in times of crisis? The results of our survey taken during the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic reveal that character is considered among Canadians of voting age as an important ingredient of political leadership. We also found that there is a significant gap between the perceived importance of the dimensions that comprise character and the belief that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau lives up to the expectations. The congruence between the perceived importance of the character dimensions and the belief that Trudeau demonstrated these dimensions predicted leadership effectiveness, and this relationship was mediated by trust. Our results are based on perceptions of leadership effectiveness; that is, we do not have objective measures of performance. Public Significance StatementThis study advances our understanding of the importance of character in political leadership during crisis situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings explicate the behaviors associated with leader character. Additionally, the study reveals that trust helps to explain the effect of character on perceived effectiveness of leaders.

In exploratory research, we investigate whether a recently developed framework of leader character, grounded in the business administration literature, has any utility for understanding how citizens value the character of modern political leaders. We are interested in whether the entire leader character framework, or only a subset of its dimensions, are valued by Canadians in political leaders. An opinion poll of 506 Canadians in the fall of 2016 examines how they responded to the framework, which dimensions of leader character they value highly, and how they employed it to evaluate three well-known politicians who were then in the media spotlight: Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau; and American presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. The results suggest Canadians possess a clear, distinct set of preferences with respect to the ideal shape of leader character. This finding is salient toward understanding the modern political culture of Canada, as well as addressing speculation that the rise of populism in many countries suggests voters might embrace a leader in the mould of American president Donald Trump.