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As early as two months into the COVID‐19 pandemic, popular media started reporting that women leaders, compared to men leaders, were managing COVID‐19 better. This paper empirically examines the impact of women leaders in managing pandemic health outcomes one year after the onset of the pandemic. Further, we consider leader effectiveness within the context of country culture. We find that women's leadership is indeed associated with better containment of the pandemic. We also find that certain country‐level cultural traits play a significant role in pandemic outcomes. More hierarchical societies experience higher COVID‐19 cases and death. Individualistic cultures and masculine cultures are associated with more deaths from the pandemic. Some cultural traits modulate women's ability to manage COVID‐19. Our findings have implications for health policy and provide rationale for promoting gender equity in political leadership. Key points: Women's leadership is associated with better containment of the COVID‐19 pandemic.Certain cultural traits have an impact on pandemic outcomes. Hierarchical societies have higher rates of COVID‐19 cases and deaths. Individualistic cultures and masculine cultures are associated with more COVID‐19 deaths but not cases.The effect of women leaders on COVID‐19 rates and deaths is modulated by cultural traits. More specifically, short‐term orientation and indulgent cultures seem to boost women's effectiveness in tackling the pandemic.The mechanism of how culture influences the effectiveness of women leaders needs to be studied further. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]