Leadership and Crisis Communication During Covid-19: The Case of Brunei Darussalam1

National leaders’ responses to the Covid-19 pandemic globally have shown that while the definition of leadership is still debatable in academia, in times of crisis, it is easily identifiable and seen. The world has seen different responses by national leaders to curb the spread of the virus, Covid-19, which has claimed more than a million lives, affecting 189 countries worldwide since January 2020. Developed countries’ successes in dealing with the pandemic are widely reported by international media, but the successes made by developing countries are not. One such country is Brunei Darussalam, where her success, even regionally in Southeast Asia, was downplayed. This paper is a qualitative case study, highlighting Brunei Darussalam’s success in handling the pandemic. Brunei Darussalam began to ‘flatten the curve’ since March 29, 2020 and there was no local transmission since May 7, 2020. The paper will show how leadership, effective crisis communication together with advances in telecommunication technologies, existing institutional practices, and a supportive public have helped Brunei Darussalam curb the spread of the virus within the country.


Introduction
C o r o n a v i r u s 2 0 1 9 (Covid-19) is a deadly infectious v i r u s c a u s e d b y s e v e r e acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-Cov-2).
The deadly virus was declared a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) on January 30 , 2020. Officially given its name, Covid-19 on  (Buranyi, 2020;Gunia, 2020;Lew, 2020 Covid-19 was first reported in the city of Wuhan, China, a city of eleven million residents.
The doctors who initially came across the deadly pneumonia were warned not to spread rumors in December 2019 (E. . Wuhan became the first city in China to be under massive lockdown from January 23, 2020, for 76 days, after its outbreak was linked to a wet market in the city. An estimated 760 million people (Engle, 2020) were eventually in some form of lockdown as more cities were affected. The Chinese government canceled Chinese New Year celebrations and the public was not allowed to leave their apartment; mass surveillance systems and technology were used to ensure compliance and vigorous contact tracing was carried out for those who were infected. Hospitals were also built in record time to treat infected people (Wang et al., 2020). The lockdown eventually helped China contain the virus (Yuan et al., 2020), although the lockdown was initially condemned by international media, calling China's actions draconian and against human rights (Page, 2020). Ten months after the outbreak of the virus, China reopened its economy and allowed citizens to travel across the country and to celebrate the recent Mid-Autumn Festival holiday on October 1, 2020, while the United States and some European countries were still seeing infections growing as no lockdowns were ordered. Medical officers in Wuhan who initially raised the alarm on the virus and were killed by it were eventually declared as martyrs by the Chinese government in April 2020 (Davidson, 2020;Huaxia, 2020;Zhang, 2020 (Wilson, 2020) and 'most effective leader on the planet' (Friedman, 2020 (Menon, 2020). While the virus has mutated (Callaway, 2020;Kupferschmidt, 2020;Schraer, 2020) and the mortality rate of those who contracted the virus seem to have reduced, cases are still expected to spike during the winter season of 2020 in the Northern Hemisphere, the race to find vaccine by global pharmaceutical consortium continues.

Leadership and Crisis Communication
During the pandemic, the world was not only fighting a pandemic, but it was also Organization, 2020a). It was important to leaders to make sure that correct facts were received and presented to citizens, as people normally turn to their government for leadership, protection, and guidance in times of crisis (Liu et al., 2020;Mazey & Richardson, 2020).
Ardern gave daily updates to assure her people that their leader was present, in charge, and communicating with them with the latest updates and government policies to contain the spread of the virus, through televised and social media mediums. Leaders must show their presence to assure the public, and Ardern is generally known as a leader who 'shows up in a crisis' (Tomkins, 2020, p. 333 (Table 3). that was spread through social media; therefore, the press conference was one of the ways that the ministers could advise the public to avoid confusion (Mahmud, 2020a;Radio Television Brunei, 2020). As a respected medical doctor and surgeon, Dr. Isham's words carried weight, so when medical and health advice was sought during the press conference, he gave his opinion as a doctor and his assurances were welcomed by the public. It was also the first time the ministers gave a live question and answer session, seen on all media platforms, from television to radio and online social media, which is a rare sight in Brunei. In general, the public welcomed the frank discussions and interactions between the invited media and the ministers ("Saranghelang," 2020), and this reassured Bruneians in general.
All the news conference materials were available in the ministry's websites and social media accounts, newspapers, and social media accounts of bloggers who were invited to the closed session of the press conference. Infographics were made simple and easily understood by the public. The minister also advised the public not to discriminate against those who were infected with the virus; initial discrimination against Vietnam. Bilateral cooperation among regional countries was strong and close during this crisis, as countries helped each other to overcome it.
The above examples show that the Brunei leaders' crisis management planning and execution skills have been successful. These skills are those highlighted by Liu et al., 2020 andWoodward (2020), which are also used in Brunei successfully.
Brunei in general was never in a 'panic,' and the people put their trust in their government and leaders to keep them safe. If keeping safe means shutting down the borders, then that is what it had to do. The ministers also reassured Bruneians that rice and meat supplies in the country were enough, even though Brunei imports a significant amount of food products from outside the country; therefore, there was no need for panic buying.
Australia and the United Kingdom reported cases of toilet papers being hoarded (Flanagan, 2020) but in Brunei, reports of alcohol sanitizers and baking products were being sold out during the 'crisis'; the latter as more people stayed at home and started their cooking and improved their baking skills (Rosli, 2020).

Policies in Place to Curb Covid-19
Having effective leaders with good communication skill is not enough to protect a country from a pandemic; understanding existing institutional infrastructures and norms are important to ensure public compliance.
Brunei is fortunate that there was no strict lockdown imposed in the country and the public was still free to travel within the country. All policies implemented, which started in January until March 2020, were aimed at reducing mass gatherings as well as close contact with infected persons (See Table 4). To safeguard the people from any infections, public sector employees were encouraged to work from home, government counters were closed, schools were closed, and restaurants were only allowed to sell take-aways, to discourage dining in by the public. All sporting facilities and museums were closed, and wedding ceremonies were asked to be postponed.
All returning flight passengers underwent two weeks of quarantine and isolation. When schools had to be reopened, online learning became the medium of instruction for both students and teachers. The effects of online teaching have highlighted the concerns on education quality received, child supervision, digital divide, and access discrepancies, in terms of hardware due to lack of personal computers, laptops, or desktops for families to share usage, as well as access to the internet connection ("Exhausted Parent," 2020; "Saranghelang," 2020). These areas are important areas of future research.  (Kon, 2020g).
Recorded offenses include waitresses not wearing face masks when serving the public and taking temperature control of patrons entering their shops. Seventeen people were also arrested in April 2020 and jailed when they were caught attending a party at a hotel, violating the mass gathering restrictions (Bandial, 2020;Faisal, 2020a;Kon, 2020h). People who intimidated and threatened health workers or volunteers from carrying out their tasks were also arrested (Faisal, 2020b) as well as those who escaped the selfisolation order (Faisal, 2020c  T h e a d v a n c e s i n i n f o r m a t i o ncommunication technologies (ICT) have helped the government spread the news more effectively.

S u p p o r t ive P u b l i c , Fa c i l i t a t e d w i t h
Brunei, according to We Are Social, (2020), has the world's fourth-highest penetration of social media usage at 94% of the total population, therefore since most people have smartphones, information can be spread easily (Othman, 2020c which has been highlighted in the media.

Conclusion
Brunei's success in the handling of Covid-19 not only had to do with national leaders who were well prepared for an imminent event but also with Restrictions are still in place and the public is still asked to adhere to public health safety habits.
Brunei also has the advantage of being a small country with a small population; therefore, with all the factors above, Brunei has successfully overcome Covid-19 in the country.