Regardless of national context, cross-boundary information sharing is inevitably entangled with issues of jurisdiction, leadership, and authority. This study answers the question: “to what extent do officials in the United States and Jordan share key leadership characteristics and how are officials’ uses of authority similar or different?”

This study adds an international context to existing research on leadership and authority by comparatively investigating the roles of leadership and authority on cross-boundary information sharing efforts in response to crises within the public health sector. The data focuses on government officials’ response to the outbreak of the West Nile Virus in the United States and a water pollution epidemic in Jordan. A purposive and snowball sampling frame was employed in the collection of the data and a custom dictionary was developed. Traditional quantitative analyses were performed including factor analyses, a cluster analysis, and t-tests to uncover variations across the cases.

The analysis revealed officials in Jordan and the United States relied in a similar fashion on bureaucratic and legal structures to address the crises. Officials in both countries demonstrated similar preferences for channels of communication supporting verbal and non-verbal cues; exhibited traits associated with a charismatic style of leadership; and relied on a hybrid approach in overcoming the crises by combining formal and functional authoritative structures, hierarchical and collaborative styles of leadership, and personal and positional sources of power.

Numerous differences pertaining to attributes of leadership and the uses of authority exhibited by officials in each country were found. There was a varying degree of reliance on authoritative structures between the two cases; with officials in Jordan relying more on formal structures of authority. While officials in Jordan exhibited a more traditional command and control style of leadership, individuals responding to the West Nile Virus more often exhibited collaborative relationships and decentralized responsibility. Finally, officials in Jordan focused on accomplishing specific tasks, whereas individuals in the United States focused primarily on ensuring good interpersonal relationships. This study concludes with practical implications and possible avenues for future research.