5 Leadership Lessons from the 1918 Flu Pandemic

The Influenza pandemic of 1918-19 - sometimes called the "Spanish Flu" - killed an estimated 20-50 million people worldwide (with some estimates as high as 100 million), making it one of the deadliest events in human history. An estimated 675,000 of those deaths were in the United States (US). With a lethality rate of >2.5 percent, that pandemic was much deadlier than typical flu outbreaks.

While that pandemic happened just over 100 years ago, several of the leadership mistakes made then provide useful lessons for leaders today.

Mistake #1 - Failing to Escalate a Whistleblower Warning - Whenever a big scandal hits the news, chances are there will be a following story about the early warning signs that did not reach - or were ignored - by the organization's leadership. The same thing happened in 1918 with the influenza outbreak. A likely theory is the worldwide pandemic started in January 1918 in Haskell County, Kansas - a sparsely populated area in the middle of the US with about 1700 people spread over about 500 square miles (about 1300 square kilometers). A doctor there, Dr. Loring Miner, was so alarmed when dozens of his neighbors were killed by the same illness in a short time, he alerted US Public Health Service officials. Those officials saw the seriousness and published Dr. Miner's warning in their weekly journal to health officials around the world. Unfortunately, these warnings either did not make it up to the right military and government leaders empowered to act, or they were ignored.

LESSON -> Leaders should proactively communicate clear criteria to all levels of their organization about the types of things they expected to be personally alerted to immediately. At the minimum, these should involve things that present clear and present risk of serious injury, death, or legal violations.

Mistake #2 - Failing to Contain the Problem - Once a problem becomes evident in a leader's area of responsibility, they need to ensure their problem doesn't spread to other parts of their organization. The influenza outbreak in Haskell County, Kansas soon became the US Army's problem when it spread to a nearby Army base, Camp Funston, which held an average of over 56,000 troops. On March 4th, the first soldier at the camp reported coming down with influenza. By the end of the month, more than 1100 soldiers at the camp were sick enough to be hospitalized. Because they were being mobilized to serve in World War 1, soldiers from Camp Funston were constantly transferred to other bases in the US on their way to France. The Army surgeon general tried to control the influenza outbreak by requiring bases to quarantine affected soldiers, but the rules were not rigidly enforced. By the end of April, 1918, 24 of the 36 main Army bases in the US suffered an influenza outbreak, and 30 of the 50 largest cities in the US had a spike in deaths from influenza and pneumonia. The outbreak then spread to Europe in the form of an outbreak in Brest, France, which was one of the largest points where troops from the US arrived to fight in Europe.

LESSON -> Problems often start small but snowball rapidly. The key is for leaders to be brave enough to pull the fire alarm and halt business as usual to contain and fix the problem before it spreads and creates bigger, costlier, programs downstream. For example, if a manufacturing plant discovers a substantial flaw in its output, its leaders need to report the problem up and down the supply chain to immediately find and fix the problem before it reaches customers.

Mistake #3 - Withholding Information - One reason the 1918 influenza pandemic spread so rapidly around the world was because information about it was not shared. The US and Allied governments did not want to let information out that might make them look weakened and vulnerable to their German enemies and allies. The Germans and their Central Power allies also were hit hard by the pandemic and did not want to disclose that either. The press in those countries complied in not reporting on the influenza, either by tacit or explicit agreement. Spain, however, was not a participant in the war, so the press in Spain was more open about reporting on the outbreak of the pandemic in Spain. Because Spain was the only prominent country reporting on it, many people thought Spain was uniquely impacted by it. That is why many people called it the "Spanish Flu."

LESSON -> As a leader, it is tempting to cover up a problem to avoid looking weak or admitting a mistake. The intention may just be to hold things back temporarily, to try to fix things before they need to go public. A lesson that many leaders have learned the hard way, however, is the cover-up usually ends up being a much bigger mistake than the original problem. Smart leaders are transparent. They don't hide bad news. They realize that as soon as they share bad news with their boss and stakeholders, those people also share accountability.

Mistake #4 - Ignoring Evidence - Sometimes leaders fail because they get clear warnings but do not act on them. The experiences of Philadelphia and St. Louis in the United States during the 1918-19 influenza pandemic has become an oft-cited case study about the impact of heeding vs. ignoring evidence. The public health director in Philadelphia refused to cancel a parade in September 1918 despite clear evidence of a community spread of the influenza. Three days after the parade, all of the cities hospitals were full and 2600 people would die within days. Leaders in St. Louis, on the other hand, took the warnings in 1918 seriously. Within two days of the first reported cases, leaders in St. Louis enforced widespread closures and bans on public gatherings to manage the spread of the influenza. The peak mortality rate in St. Louis ended up being 1/8th of what Philadelphia experienced during the pandemic. This case study is where the phrase "flatten the curve" may have started.

LESSON -> Smart leaders learn to recognize, and act appropriately, when they get a warning that is the equivalent of a fire alarm. They don't wait. They don't focus on the inconvenience. They realize that every moment matters. They know that, after the fact, they would rather ask for forgiveness for an over-reaction than take blame for an under-reaction.

Mistake #5 - Protecting Themselves - One of the most sensational headlines in the coverage of the "Spanish Flu" was when Spanish King Alfonso XII was reported as being sick with this new influenza in May 1918. UK Prime Minister Lloyd George reportedly caught such a severe case of the influenza in September 1918 that he had to be on a respirator. In April 1919, US President Woodrow Wilson was reported to have caught the virus while in Paris negotiating the peace treaty to end World War I. Wilson's illness confined him to bed and changed his behavior so much he worried his aides.

LESSON -> Leaders need to lead by example, especially in times of crises. They have to model the behavior they ask of the people they lead. They also need to create clear contingency plans for what happens if they are unable to execute their responsibilities effectively. A leader who is physically unable to lead is no good to anyone. In fact, they can be worse than absent if they refuse to delegate their responsibilities to others while they are not at their full powers.

There is at least one good thing that comes out of crises: the opportunity to learn from them to help prevent, or manage, future crises. Hopefully the lessons from this tragic pandemic from one hundred years ago will help us lead our way through this pandemic and future crises.

Like this article? Subscribe to this newsletter to get our bi-weekly articles about leadership lessons from history.

About the Author: Victor Prince is a corporate trainer, executive coach, and best-selling author who helps organizations build leadership, strategy, communications, and critical thinking skills. Earlier in his career, Victor was a consultant at Bain & Company, a marketing executive at Capital One, and the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. He has an MBA in Finance from Wharton. Follow Victor on LinkedIN to access his 100+ articles on leadership, strategy, learning & development, and more.