The world's second largest Ebola virus disease outbreak in DRC (August 2018-June 2020) caused 3,481 cases in 29 health zones, 2,299 deaths and about 250,000 contacts traced. It occurred in densely populated vast areas, with insecurity, ongoing humanitarian crisis and community reluctancy. Four hubs, sixteen sub-coordinations were set up with hundreds of experts to support local inexperienced health workers. Five health coordinators were deployed to lead more than 600 people at national and field level coordinations. This work aimed at reviewing coordinators’ leadership styles using leadership theories. Recommendations were made for future complex health operations.

The leadership styles of the five coordinators were reviewed retrospectively using different leadership theories. Three groups of theories: (1) Leader’s traits, characteristics, and skills; (2) Leader’s behaviors: behavioral, transformational, and situational; (3) Authentic and servant leadership.

Analysis with the three groups of leadership theory highlighted that leaders had mixed leadership approaches.

1) Self-confident, calm, determined, extravert (one a bit shy), conscientious, motivators; Sociable and empathic while dealing with staffs affected by incidents; Few strong characters affecting interpersonal relations; Strong negotiation skills while dealing with local stakeholders; Experienced and knowledgeable in analyzing, making judgment and decisions.

2) A participative approach when supporting nationals and partners; Using transformational leadership when coaching national counterparts and mobilizing partners, Directive when teams were to comply with rules or act quickly.

3) Compassion; building trust, confidence and capacity; empowering and coaching.

The complex disease outbreak imposed a mixed leadership style. Leaders had specific traits and technical skills. Servant leadership style was often used to trigger participation and build capacity in support of national and international experts. Directive approaches were used to trigger urgent actions. Findings could help in selecting and training leaders for public health emergencies. It may require further empirical and operational research in emergency contexts.