Despite the challenges facing small economies, leadership research has given scant attention to leaders’ behaviour in those countries during crises. Using seemingly paradoxical domains of paternalistic leadership theory: authoritarian, benevolent and moral leader behaviour, together with concepts like populism from the political science domain, we analyse how Sri Lanka’s ‘strongman’ President provided a façade of paternalistic leadership during the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Through analysis of written and verbal content (public speeches, independent reports and government media output), we show how the power exercised through authoritarian, as opposed to authoritative behaviour, together with espoused morality and benevolence, appears to have been effective in the short term in containing the pandemic. However, sustained success in dealing with the crisis is hampered by the contradictions between this paternalistic façade and the dark realities of authoritarian and populist leadership. Accordingly, we offer theoretical insights into how the darker elements of paternalistic leadership can be better understood and averted.

尽管小型经济体面临挑战，但领导力研究很少关注这些国家的领导人在危机期间的行为。利用家长式领导理论中看似自相矛盾的领域：威权、仁慈和道德的领导行为，以及政治科学领域的民粹主义等概念，我们分析了斯里兰卡的“强人”总统如何在 COVID 的第一阶段提供家长式领导的表象-19 大流行。通过对书面和口头内容（公开演讲、独立报告和政府媒体输出）的分析，我们展示了通过威权而不是权威行为行使的权力，以及所信奉的道德和仁慈，在短期内似乎是有效的在遏制大流行。然而，这种家长式的外表与专制和民粹主义领导的黑暗现实之间的矛盾阻碍了应对危机的持续成功。因此，我们提供了有关如何更好地理解和避免家长式领导的黑暗元素的理论见解。