Mid Sweden University

During the war between Russia and Ukraine, which started the 24th of February 2022, Ukrainespresident Volodymyr Zelenskyj has been praised for his skills in rhetoric, and it shows that the spoken word may have a great impact during an ongoing warfare. Previous studies within therhetoric field confirm this, but there is still research to be done in the field of leadership theory, with a focus on strategic leadership from situation and recipients, during a crisis period. The purpose of our study is to examine whether Zelenskyj has adapted his leadership and rhetoric depending on the situation and recipients with a starting point in situational leadership theory. To answer the questions in the study, we have done a qualitative rhetorical text analysis of strategically chosen speeches from a predefined phase of the war. The results show that Zelenskyj is mostly not adapting his leadership style due to the recipient’s development levels according to the SLII-method, he does on the other hand adapt his speech 100% out of his purpose of the speech. Besides this, the study shows a thought through strategic use of classical rhetorical techniques. The three central themes that are examined are Context and Development levels, Rhetoric and Leadership style.