key: cord-0716982-4e8qwmhy
authors: Lilleker, Darren G.; Stoeckle, Thomas
title: The challenges of providing certainty in the face of wicked problems: Analysing the UK government's handling of the COVID‐19 pandemic
date: 2021-08-02
journal: J Public Aff
DOI: 10.1002/pa.2733
sha: dd2d3f3586184bd12264d2d914b2621945d94661
doc_id: 716982
cord_uid: 4e8qwmhy

Positioning Covid‐19 as a wicked problem we analyse the extent that the UK government adhered to the guidelines for dealing with such problems and the extent to which the management of the pandemic exacerbated the crisis. We argue the management of the pandemic saw a continuance of political communication as usual, focusing on emphasising the optimistic rhetoric which underpinned the Brexit narrative and 2019 election campaign which delivered Boris Johnson a majority. The failure to break out of a narrow permanent campaigning mindset which saw the pandemic as a brief interlude during a period when the focus was on delivering Brexit led to public confusion as optimistic claims were proven to be inaccurate and promises unreachable. Johnson's government's attempts to offer certainty despite a situation characterised by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity led to numerous U‐turns that seriously damaged their credibility while the politicisation of the response led to poor decision making at key points. We therefore highlight the deficiencies of Johnson's strategy and highlight key lessons for communications professionals who navigate an increasingly volatile and uncertain world beset by wicked problems. In particularly we highlight the importance of depoliticising crises, seeking a diverse range of ideas and expertise, developing an empathic leadership style, starting a public conversation that recognises uncertainty and so develop a framework where wicked problems are a feature of public debate. We argue that failure in all of these areas contributed to the UK's poor comparative performance during the Covid‐19 pandemic.

Positioning Covid-19 as a wicked problem we analyse the extent that the UK government adhered to the guidelines for dealing with such problems and the extent to which the management of the pandemic exacerbated the crisis. We argue the management of the pandemic saw a continuance of political communication as usual, focusing on emphasising the optimistic rhetoric which underpinned the Brexit narrative and 2019 election campaign which delivered Boris Johnson a majority. The failure to break out of a narrow permanent campaigning mindset which saw the pandemic as a brief interlude during a period when the focus was on delivering Brexit led to public confusion as optimistic claims were proven to be inaccurate and promises unreachable. Johnson's government's attempts to offer certainty despite a situation characterised by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity led to numerous U-turns that seriously damaged their credibility while the politicisation of the response led to poor decision making at key points. We therefore highlight the deficiencies of Johnson's strategy and highlight key lessons for communications professionals who navigate an increasingly volatile and uncertain world beset by wicked problems. In particularly we highlight the importance of depoliticising crises, seeking a diverse range of ideas and expertise, developing an empathic leadership style, starting a public conversation that recognises uncertainty and so develop a framework where wicked problems are a feature of public debate. We argue that failure in all of these areas contributed to the UK's poor comparative performance during the Covid-19 pandemic. These 'wicked problems 'complex, interdependent, unpredictable, open-ended (Rittel & Webber, 1973 )arise from developments in the social and natural world (Alford & Head, 2017) , and require new and different approaches to planning and decision-making by all stakeholders.

However, often, government responses to such problems demonstrate over-confidence, insufficient preparedness, an inability to process complex scientific evidence and a lack of imagination with regard to likely outcomesthese traits are all highlighted as evidence of bad leadership, not just in politics (Örtenblad, 2021) .

The complexity of the interconnected crises has shown conventional crisis management and the rules and norms of crisis communication ill-equipped for the challenges. To demonstrate the complexity and the challenges for crisis management we analyse the Boris Johnson-led UK government's management of the pandemic. As a global travel hub, the UK was highly likely to suffer from the spread of any highly contagious virus and therefore required a strategically planned and coordinated approach. The UK is a unitary state with some powers devolved to the administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, Scotland enjoying greater fiscal autonomy, increasing the complexity of government. The key question we pose in this paper focuses on the management and communication approach of the Westminster UK government. Specifically, to what extent did the character and composition of the government, its representatives and its advisory bodies, and the constraints imposed on decision making, hinder developing an effective strategy for reducing the spread and impact of Covid-19. In doing so we ask what lessons can be learned for governments facing situations of unprecedented seriousness and impact and what sort of governance is needed to deal with the wicked complexity of events such as a pandemic which represents a threat to all aspects of life and challenges everything that would previously (often falsely) have been regarded as a certainty.

The meaning of the words crisis and strategy in ancient Greek are closely related: crisis referring to a situation where a swift decision or judgement is required (Shaluf et al., 2003, p. 29) , and strategy describing the possession of the skills necessary (Heath, 2004, p. 823) . Today, an entire inter-and cross-disciplinary field of research is devoted to decision-making under conditions of uncertainty (Mandel et al., 2019) .

The importance of this academic endeavour has been highlighted by the complex, interrelated and evolving nature of the pandemic which has required decision-making under continuously changing conditions of precarious knowledge (Koffman et al., 2020; Rutter et al., 2020) .

Swift decisions are needed, but information is fluid and everchanging, and those operating within health care systems require leadership.

These characteristics of decision-making and leadership are often attributed to military contexts and especially warfare (Grint, 2008) , and it is no surprise that some of the most used metaphors in discussing COVID relate to warfare (Chapman & Miller, 2020; Isaacs & Priesz, 2020; Kohlt, 2020) .

Comparisons drawn between the 1918-19 Spanish Flu and COVID-19 pandemic concluded that today's inadequate and counterproductive responses, including pushback and resistance to directives, mismanagement of resources, a never-ending flood of mis-and disinformation (Calvert & Arbuthnott, 2021) , 'closely mirror those to the pandemic 102 years ago' (Nichols et al., 2020, p. 642) . Due to the steady evolution of the spread of communicable diseases alongside drivers towards the world being a global village (Huremovi c, 2019; Tisdell, 2020), such events are more predictable. Crises, in any area of life in which nations are interconnected, can quickly become large-scale and potentially global (Potrafke, 2015) .

The characteristic that ties all large-scale crises together is uncertainty. There is information, but it is incomplete and volatile, but decisions need to be taken with every path chosen having an element of risk. Analysing, managing and communicating about risk on a societal level became institutionalised in the 1970s as public concern about risk increased in the wake of growing awareness of environmental pollution as a result of industrial accidents. Fischhoff (1995) , a leader in the risk management field, highlighted the importance of being open, transparent and persuasive arguing 'One cannot expect to quiet a raging controversy with a few hastily prepared messages. One cannot assume that expensively produced communications will work without technically competent evaluations. Those who ignore these issues may be the problem, as much as the risk is. The price of their ignorance is borne by everyone concerned' (Fischhoff, 1995, p. 144 ).

Fischhoff builds on work showing poor decision-making can be explained by cognitive limitations and the ideological perspectives of individuals finding themselves confronted with situations of significant uncertainty (Fischhoff & Beyth-Marom, 1976) . The calm, curious, confident and considerate recognition of, and engagement with, uncertainty is thus a key requirement of effective leadership in times of crises.

Reflecting on the 1918-19 and COVID-19 pandemics Professor Nancy Bristow acknowledged 'how little I understood about the overwhelming power of the uncertainty that comes with a pandemic born of a novel virus' (Nichols et al., 2020, p. 643) . She highlights COVID-19 is 'a complex problem in a complex system' (Rutter et al., 2020) , in other words, a wicked problemtypical of a VUCA world of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (Latemore, 2020) . Framing the leadership and decision-making challenges arising from COVID-19 as wicked problems brings to the fore unique characteristics beyond those of conventional problems and crises for which standard operating procedures, rules and regulations have been developed. These include the lack of a definitive problem formulation, the absence of a stopping rule, an inability to provide reliable quantitative measures of success, and the unreliability of trial-and-error learning because of the uniqueness and volatility of wicked problems (Zizka, 2020) . Grint allocates specific decision-making styles to types of problems arguing management is adequate for tame problems, but leadership is needed for wicked problems. When facing wicked problems, success comes from a situational understanding of problems and application of the appropriate style of decision-making (Grint, 2008 (Grint, , 2014 (Grint, , 2020 . That situational understanding needs to be paired with a high degree of flexibility in applying styles to changing conditions during a pandemic when 'no-one knows what the end game is' (Lilleker et al., 2021a, p. 333) .

There is evidence that the existing crisis communication literature has not addressed issues raised by studies of wicked problems in a VUCA world, suggesting existing rulebooks may offer limited advice for dealing with these challenges. Defining crises 'as risks that are manifested' (Heath & O'Hair, 2010, p. Uncertainty is taken as a given and acknowledged, yet 'there is very little direction on handling crises where this knowledge is lacking including situations with a high degree of uncertainty' (Liu et al., 2016, p. 479) . The insufficient conceptual understanding of 'radical uncertainty' where 'the decision-making context is equivocal and indeterminate' (Tuckett & Nikolic, 2017, p. 502) is at the heart of present and future wicked leadership challenges despite the difference between risk and uncertainty epistemically proven 100 years ago (Knight, 1921) .

Crisis communication scholarship has made highly valuable contributions to the theory and practice of crisis, disaster and risk management. Situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) is an established and applied standard in the field which highlights the role of organisations in helping publics during crises by providing constantly updated instructions and information (Coombs & Holladay, 2012) . However, the affective consequences of being exposed to uncertainty are not sufficiently understood and 'it is too soon to know exactly what role uncertainty plays in crisis communication' (Liu et al., 2016, p. 485) . It is a natural human urge to make uncertainty manageable and controllable. But when faced with wicked problems there are inherently unpredictable levels of uncertainty (Taleb, 2007) . Do governments simply apply a toolbox of solutions developed for tame problems? Grint (2014) highlights leaders must 'be very wary of acting decisively precisely because we cannot know what to do'. Hence, it is not surprising that established solutions fall short and leaders struggle to comprehend the scale of dilemma they face. Add to that the filter of mediated political communication, and it becomes clear that longstanding explanations for poor decision-making in politics remain salient (Fischhoff & Beyth-Marom, 1976 ).

Yet, crisis and risk communication theory has not engaged with the concepts of radical uncertainty and they do not feature in some recent reflections on COVID-19 for crisis communication (Coombs, 2020) . Coombs finds 'new concerns for public sector crisis communication and management efforts because of the unique crisis demands it created' (Coombs, 2020, p. 991) , pointing to affective message characteristics such as anxiety, empathy and fatigue as key factors in public health communication. He argues effectiveness requires a deep understanding of audiences, as 'a message cannot reduce anxiety if the crisis managers fail to realize what is driving the anxiety during the crisis' (Coombs, 2020, p. 999). Successful affective messaging in the face of wicked challenges requires cognitive and emotional empathy: to recognise others' emotions and to compassionately relate to them through building a shared identity (Jetten et al., 2020) . Emotional intelligence and empathy are seen as key motivational effects of charismatic leadership (Choi, 2006) , which, according to Antonakis, is 'well suited to solving problems in situations of ambiguity and crisis' (Antonakis, 2021, p. 210) . Charismatic and empathic leadership provides the inclusivity and togetherness that are essential aspects of any behavioural change message with crisis managers representing us, doing it for us and understanding us at each stage (Jetten et al., 2020) . Whilst Coombs points to resistance to pandemic messaging and calls for a better understanding of said resistance, he does not address specific drivers and trends such as the politicisation of health and science information, which has led to an erosion of trust in science, with a direct impact on the effectiveness of COVID-19 communication (Druckman et al., 2020; Pennycook et al., 2020, April 14) . Jetten et al. (2020) emphasise the need for a non-partisan approach which eschews any areas which might ignite societal polarisation; however they focus largely on adopting a paternalistic approach to managing behaviour which is only one aspect of the crisis and one on which there are multiple pressures.

Rather than a paternalistic approach, perhaps maternalism is more appropriate, as per assessments of New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's empathetic and honest crisis leadership style (McGuire et al., 2020) . As a model of political leadership in a public health crisis, Johnson and Williams (2020) suggest citizens need to feel protected and cared for. During the COVID crisis, studies find female leaders by and large more successfully demonstrating an empathetic leadership style (Dada et al., 2021; Johnson, 2020) , although we acknowledge the point that selection bias and underlying factors bringing women into leadership roles in the first place play a role that needs further exploration (Windsor et al., 2020, p. 2) . We will return to this point in our conclusion.

Despite a plethora of empirical research in crisis leadership, dealing with the true complexity of a situation such as the COVID-19 pandemic remains largely uncharted territory. When we then consider the wider complexity of governance and the perspectives and approaches political leaders bring to crisis management, we add a further dimension of complexity. It is a paradox of wicked problems that successful navigation ought to be guided by precise instruments providing precise measurements, yetrobust, sophisticated and granular as the numbers may be, they cannot provide navigational certainty. David Spiegelhalter made this point quoting Silver 'The numbers have no way of speaking for themselves. We speak for them. We imbue them with meaning' (Silver, 2012; Spiegelhalter, 2019) and core to political communication is giving meaning.

Health communication is normally handled by public health agencies and health communication specialists, not politicians (Parker & Thorson, 2009 ). When health becomes politicised, such as contraception or abortion policies, polarisation between partisan stances can occur (Bessett et al., 2015) . The norms of political communication, particularly permanent campaigning, means there is a constant blurring of information provision with image management (Joathan & Lilleker, 2020) , practices inappropriate for health crises.

Health professionals tend to start from a basis of high credibility and public trust, politicians often do not (Cairney & Wellstead, 2020) . (Silver, 2012, p. 55f.) . The juxtaposition of the intellectually curious, empirical forecaster and the ideological talk show host, ready to express and defend a set opinion, has more than a fleeting similarity with leading UK statisticians on the one hand, and a Prime Minister with a long career as a newspaper columnist and editor of opinion journalism (Bower, 2020; Purnell, 2011) on the other. In

Waylen's analysis of political leadership during COVID-19 (2021), Boris Johnson's 'hypermasculinity' (p. 1159) is characterised as 'top-down, monolithic, over-confident' (p. 1165)all traits of the incurious hedgehog. Silver advices those who strive to make better predictions and decisions under conditions of uncertainty: 'be foxy' (Silver, 2012, p. 53) . During crises, communicators need to connect dots, navigate positions and build holistic understandings of the facts in order to make good decisions and reach optimal outcomes. They must also learn to navigate the advice from experts who have more of a hedgehog personality, narrowly focused on one specific goal. They need to be constantly curious and sceptical. The challenge is that political leaders can be hedgehog-like focused on their own image and brand; experts meanwhile are solely focused on their own narrow remit. If all those central to decision-making adopt a narrow perspective it is highly unlikely these contrasting foci can be combined to meet wicked problems. Political communication has long practiced the art of navigating complexities and synthesising policies to simple soundbites that are reassuring, persuasive, on-brand and on-message (Cwalina & Falkowski, 2018) . However, such instances require emotional and attitudinal appeals only, health communication requires immediate behavioural change requiring high trust, credibility and empathetic communication (Jetten et al., 2020) . Achieving these are problematic when governed by political communication norms. The drive to stay on message, appear certain, avoiding answering difficult questions, refusing to admit a lack of certainty may not be ideal for economic policy but the outcomes are long term and as the public agenda shifts the inconsistencies between claims and outcomes can go unnoticed. Outcomes during a crisis can be immediate and inconsistencies, when easily exposed, damage credibility. The maintenance of trust is even more challenging for politicians who polarise opinion, do not command high levels of trust, who face strong opposition to measures or are forced to perform U-turns when their rhetoric does not match reality (Garland & Lilleker, 2021; Lilleker et al., 2021b) . Seven weeks before imposing a nationwide lockdown, Johnson stated COVID-19 would 'trigger a panic and a desire for market segregation' that would go beyond 'what is medically rational to the point of doing real and unnecessary economic damage' and 'at that moment humanity needs some Government somewhere that is willing at least to make the case powerfully for freedom of exchange'. He went on to proclaim the UK would be 'ready to take off its Clark Kent spectacles' to become the Superman of the free global market.

and with a hedgehog mindset focused on reaffirmed Britain's economic global prowess. It also set the scene for weeks of low engagement with the evolving pandemic, with the virus claimed to pose minimal risks (Garland & Lilleker, 2021, p. 172) . His sanguine approach is captured in a Downing Street press conference of March 3. Flanked by the Chief Medical Officer and Chief Scientific Advisor, Johnson launched the 'contain, delay, research, mitigate' strategy arguing 'this will be a mild disease from which they [the majority infected] will speedily and fully recover as we've already seen'. 3 Despite evidence from outbreaks linked to European ski resorts and the virus spreading seemingly out of control in parts of Italy, a nation on a similar timeline and trajectory, Johnson's speech reflected a reluctance to impose any restrictions on public freedom that would impinge on the brand of Johnson's Britain as the post-Brexit economic superman (Calvert & Arbuthnott, 2021, p. 74) . The period of mid-Feb to mid-March was thus a wasted period, reflecting a Cabinet wishing to retain focus on the platform on which they were elected. Reliance on WHO advise that COVID-19 was similar to SARS and MERS, which effected a small number of countries (Gregor & Lilleker, 2021) ,, which rapidly proved inaccurate, suggests a single-mindedness at the heart of government which meant contrasting arguments were marginalised. June, succeeded by Sajid Javid (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2021/jun/27/ matt-hancock-resigns-sajid-javid-health-secretary-politics-live-latest-news-updates). 2 https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-speech-in-greenwich-3-february-2020. lacked resonance and simplicity. The images of crowds flocking to beaches and the re-opening of hospitality accompanied by the financial incentive 'eat out to help out' led to a divided society, some acting complacently despite the virus remaining prevalent and others, both young 6 and old, 7 feeling vulnerable and nervous even to leave their homes. The major failure was to build an inclusive and empathetic approach that the whole nation could be comfortable with.

Opinion polls showed splits between people who wished to return to a situation closer to normality pitted against those who preferred tighter restrictions until the virus was eradicated or a vaccine was developed. The latter's feelings jarred with Johnson's optimistic certainty of the correctness of his government's approach. The easing of restrictions also saw the start of divergent approaches across the devolved administrations, Scotland's first minister Nicola Sturgeon in particular employed a different slogan, terminology and rules while also being formally in control of all communication (Garland & Lilleker, 2021) . Scotland's more cautious approach represented an internal challenge to Johnson, heightening the sense his government's approach was too cavalier. Johnson attempted to assuage public anxiety through the introduction of a test, track and trace system requiring those who contracted COVID-19 to self-isolate. Johnson's claim that this would be world-beating 8 was soon revealed to be severely detached from reality and this, alongside further U-turns over the summer of 2020, saw the government's competence and Johnson's approval ratings precipitously decline (Garland & Lilleker, 2021) .

The political events of Summer 2020 also offer evidence that the complexity of the situation had not been fully considered by government and that policies had not been fully risk assessed. Although within government there must have been ongoing vigilance across all areas of policy, government attention seemed to be event driven. Minor Uturns on whether poorer families should be given free meals for children when schools were closed were damaging, particular as it was a high profile intervention from a footballer that led to a change of policy.

More damaging was the U-turn over using algorithms to calculate exit awards for students which were criticised as unfair, defended wholeheartedly by government and then within a week the system was abandoned. These examples, alongside unsatisfactory justifications for certain restrictions that were put in place at different points, and vacillation over whether face-mask wearing was advisory or mandatory contributed to the decline of public confidence. The government seemed trapped in a cycle of making a decision, facing criticism within the media, from the opposition or public, aggressive entrenchment from government ministers in defence of their position and then reversal. This is indicative of a 'hedgehog approach' that is led by public and media opinion, rather than the complexity of scientific evidence and subsequent coherent, evidence-based policy-making (Hartwell & McKee, 2021) . A combination of partisan negation of oppositional positions, populist appeals to bolster the case for not introducing restrictions and claims to be science led when at minimum scientific data suggests an opposing course showed the Johnson government's strategy ran counter to even the basic rules of crisis communication.

The most damaging aspect here is the claim of being correct and claims of certainty regarding the evidence-based case and robustness of the measures. When the truth is exposed as hollow the case falls apart, but so does the ability to make future believable claims of truth and certainty. The deeper issue is that the rules of political communication,

where claims are made about a policy that cannot later be scrutinised easily (such as economic reforms which take years to incubate), were easily stress tested during the pandemic and usually exposed as hollow, for example the fact that severe failings in the test, track and trace have dogged the system throughout and, despite strong defences, policies have had to be reversed. Johnson attempted to capitalise on his personal brand strength of being the optimistic, strong and authentic man of the people (Waylen, 2021; Yates, 2018) making his approach to the pandemic an extension of his approach to politics more generally. Under normal circumstances it is difficult to assess the extent that confidence in one's own approach is well founded. Due to the examples above, and other claims about being back to normality by Easter, summer and later Christmas, what made for a successful brand in politics as usual made for a failed brand in the context of a complex crisis.

The success of the UK's vaccination programme should not go unmentioned (Harris & Moss, 2021) . Key drivers behind the vaccine rollout success according to the British Medical Journal were a head start in developing and approving a vaccine, focused work by the vaccines taskforce, widely available vaccination centres, and a dedicated effort by the NHS (Baraniuk, 2021) . There was some indication that the government 'learnt the lessons of test and trace' (Haddon, 2021, p. 5) , however the ending of restrictions on 19th July 2021, 'freedom day', seems a return to bold, and widely criticised, optimism. The UK Health Secretary tested positive for COVID-19, and both Chancellor and Prime Minister are selfisolating after initially trying to avoid the nationally recommended steps, and then having to perform another U-turn. 9 Scientists warned against the risks of a 'significant third wave of hospitalisations and deaths' following the lifting of all regulations (Iacobucci, 2021) , and a letter to The Lancet signed by more 1200 scientists came out strongly against the political decision by the UK government (Gurdasani et al., 2021) . At the point of writing, it is not yet clear if a further U-turn and lockdown may be required as a result of this decision.

The context for the UK government's handling of the pandemic thus was:

• the government was elected in December 2019 with a solid 80 seats majority, had the main focus of 'getting Brexit done' and a leader whose brand is a blend of optimism and nationalism 6 https://youngminds.org.uk/blog/coping-with-anxiety-about-leaving-the-house/. 7 https://www.which.co.uk/news/2020/10/coronavirus-has-left-many-older-people-tooafraid-to-leave-the-house/. 8 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-52745202. 9 https://news.sky.com/story/pm-and-sunak-not-isolating-despite-being-pinged-after-javidspositive-covid-test-12358198.

• a National Health Service operating under the strains of a decade of austerity policies 10 • a public health communication protocol based on 'known knowns' and 'known unknowns' (Bammer & Smithson, 2012, p. xiv) , where crisis communication is understood as a tame management problem • a political communication protocol that follows permanent campaigning principles (Joathan & Lilleker, 2020) As the pandemic started to take hold, a fluid set of events and a steady but unpredictable trickle of information required the government to act and respond on a number of levels and in a number of ways to try to keep the country safe. This scenario played out in countries around the globe, and when we consider the evidence from other nations and governments -COVID-19 infection rates and death tolls, social and economic impactwe see differences in outcomes, and commonalities based on political leadership, decision-making and communication. This is not a black and white picture, however Lilleker et al. (2021a, p. 336) found that 'some authoritarian and conservative administrations demonstrated a greater tendency to underestimate the pandemic … [but] there is not a simple correlation between the style and ideology of a government and the impact experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic'. There is evidence that 'hypermasculine leadership', not least the UK version of 'overweaning self-confidence and groupthink' (Gaskell et al., 2020; Waylen, 2021 Waylen, , p. 1169 (Maak et al., 2021, p. 4 

Minister Nicola Sturgeon demonstrated greater oversight of the details of policy as well as developing an inclusive Scottish approach that she frequently contrasted with the 'shambolic decision-making process' of Westminster (Garland & Lilleker, 2021 Another notable example of successful COVID-19 leadership is South Korea, the 'agile-adaptive approach, a policy of transparency in communicating risk, and citizens' voluntary cooperation are critical factors' (Moon, 2020, p. 651) . While Sturgeon's approach linked to her longerterm agenda of promoting Scottish independence, her approach to communication during the pandemic reinforces the argument that female leaders adopted a better tone for building a consensus and giving confidence in the administration's oversight (Dada et al., 2021) .

Transparency, agile-adaptive management and broad citizen compliance are not evident in our analysis of the Johnson government's response. Rather than binding the society together and demonstrating that 'we're all in this together', studies found blame-shifting and scapegoating from the government towards experts (Pearse, 2020) and towards the public (Morgan, 2020) at key points, in particular as the easing of restrictions resulted in spikes in infection and death rates. In analysing differing aspects of government policy aiming at restricting the spread of COVID-19 using his tame/wicked/critical problem framework, Grint puts COVID-19 testing in the manageable tame category, self-isolation in the mobilising, trust requiring wicked category, and the lockdown of schools and businesses in the command and coerce, critical category (Grint, 2020, p. 2) . Against such a taxonomy of tame, wicked and critical problems, a challenge such as COVID-19 means that 'all three modes of decisionmaking (Leadership, Management and Command) are necessary because of the complex and complicated nature of the problem' (Grint, 2020, p. 1) .

Where a 'judicious combination of manager, commander and leader' is needed. Our analysis agrees that Johnson was found wanting: 'a man hitherto famous for the attributions of a clown rather than a commander, we

British have a leader who has had great difficulty becoming the commander' (Grint, 2020, p. 5) . Going beyond attacks on the performance of Johnson, we found all three levels of decision-makingleadership, management and commandsuffered from the communication of overconfidence and performative certainty. Throughout 2020, and at the time of unlocking society fully in July 2021, the government narrative is backed by claims of being 'right' in their assessments. The strategy is consistent with a permanent campaigning mode of government communication that is only successful when there is no counter-evidence. However, past failings have exposed government decisions for their fallibility.

The tamewickedcritical taxonomy provides a flexible framework that allows integration of the elements of a multidisciplinary approach to communication and decision-making under radical uncertainty, across political communication, crisis and public health communication, but also leadership theory. As Grint highlights, none of these concepts, frameworks and theories are substitutes for the role of those responsible for decision-making, which is to address problems with the appropriate questions, answers and processes. An openminded, curious fox mindset is better suited to non-tame problems, than the close-mindedness of the hedgehogand this is true not just for the image-focused politician, but also for experts with on single area of focus, irrespective of how sophisticated and scientifically advanced their information processing may be.

What lessons can be learned for governments facing wicked problems and situations of radical uncertainty, and what sort of governance, 10 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/31/how-a-decade-of-privatisation-andcuts-exposed-england-to-coronavirus. leadership and communication style is needed? Bringing together multiple theoretical strands from risk and crisis management and communication, political communication, leadership and decision theory, we make some recommendations regarding the handling of wicked and critical problems and VUCA events:

• de-politicise decision-making contexts,

• invite diverse expertise,

• take an empathetic, non-partisan approach,

• publicly acknowledge the radical uncertainty of problems,

• make wicked problem thinking the new behavioural economics, and

• put processes in place that help avoid category errors with regard to the nature of problems and solutions.

In the UK, throughout 2020 Prime Minister Johnson stayed on brand, communicating COVID-19 as a tame problem even though scientific evidence indicated otherwise. He did not adjust his approach to problem solving to a more integrated and inclusive approach where examples from other countries showed this to be a more successful tactic under the given circumstances. Perhaps this contributed to not only his own dip in support over the year, but also to the UK being the 5th worst effected nation, in terms of cases and deaths, and the worst effected economy in the G7. Further research within this area is required, in particularly focusing on the correlation between leadership style, rhetoric and communication and the national outcome as globally the evidence is at best mixed and at worst patchy. However, we assert, that analyses of leadership style, and the exploration of the mindset of leaders is crucial for understanding how they approach a crisis and their capacity to perform the roles of leader, manager and commander.

Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study. 

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Fighting COVID-19 with agility, transparency, and participation: Wicked policy problems and new governance challenges

Why meaning-making matters: The case of the UK Government's COVID-19 response

Minds Wide Shut: How the New Fundamentalisms Divide Us

Reconsidering the 1918-19 influenza pandemic in the age of COVID-19

Debating bad leadership: Reasons and remedies

Health communication in the new media landscape

Deliberation, citizen science and covid-19

Beliefs about COVID-19 in Canada, the

The evidence on globalisation

Just Boris: The irresistible rise of a political celebrity

Dilemmas in a general theory of planning

Managing uncertainty in the covid-19 era

Branding politics: Emotion, authenticity, and the marketing culture of American political communication

A review of disaster and crisis

The signal and the noise: The art and science of prediction

The art of statistics: Learning from data

The black swan. The impact of the highly improbable

The professionals speak: Practitioners' perspectives on professional election campaigning

Economic, social and political issues raised by the COVID-19 pandemic

The role of conviction and narrative in decision-making under radical uncertainty

Gendering political leadership: Hypermasculine leadership and Covid-19

Gender in the time of COVID-19: Evaluating national leadership and COVID-19 fatalities

On the psychodynamics of

Coronavirus crisis communication: A Wicked problem