The COVID-19 Outbreak in the United States Is a Historical Failure In Leadership - Here's Why

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When the history books are written, the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States will be viewed as one of the most tragic leadership failures in modern history. Leaders at all levels of American government have failed dramatically, a reality made obvious with one glaring statistic: the U.S. has only four percent of the world’s population, but 23 percent of its COVID-19 deaths to date. 

Intelligence and talent are more domain-specific than we believe. Just because someone is brilliant at one thing—such as giving a stirring speech, or running an effective campaign—does not assure they are brilliant at another. In fact, having success in one area often creates overconfidence in areas beyond our expertise—creating risky blind spots. You wouldn’t want your surgeon to manage your money, or let a financial advisor take out your appendix. 

For all their strengths in other areas, our leaders have failed in their pivotal responsibility to manage and control this pandemic. Here are four critical mistakes: 

Worrying about popularity 

Popularity is fickle. Exemplary leaders understand this and are willing to endure short-term criticism to achieve longer-term objectives. They often make unpopular, principle-based decisions to achieve the best possible outcome. 

By contrast, many state governors caved to public pressure and criticism about lockdowns, ignoring the federal government’s COVID-19 guidelines and reopening before cases showed a sustained decline. Those same leaders are now seeing their approval ratings hit historic lows, as cases in their states reach record levels. Meanwhile, those who ignored the initial criticism and followed the guidelines are seeing record levels of support as the efficacy of those approaches show results.

Failing to learn from history 

Perhaps the bleakest error of the pandemic is the refusal of many to learn from history. The 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic offered relevant learnings for today’s crisis, yet few leaders have studied history’s key lessons. 

As the pandemic spread through the United States in 1918, two cities’ leaders took radically different approaches. Philadelphia was slow to implement non-pharmaceutical initiatives (NPI) to stem the pandemic—social distancing, business closure, mask use—and experienced a surge in cases following a large parade that went forward at the beginning of the outbreak. St. Louis, by contrast, canceled a similar parade and implemented aggressive NPIs soon after the first cases were reported. In the end, Philadelphia had among the highest case and mortality rates of any American city, and St. Louis had among the lowest.

Analysis of the Spanish Flu Pandemic showed that cities that put NPIs in place faster or took more aggressive action had lower mortality rates, and fewer total cases; their economies also all recovered much faster. During our current pandemic, while many leaders who pushed to reopen rallied others by emphasizing a need to prioritize the economy, those same leaders are seeing a second hit to their economies as the virus has spiked, and those regions will likely see a slower fiscal recovery. 

Ignoring experts and best practices 

Very few politicians have experience in epidemiology or pandemic history, yet many of them continue to believe they are smarter than the people who do. Medical experts aren’t always right, or always in agreement, but they should not be benched simply because a leader finds reality and science politically inconvenient. 

Virtually every single country or state that has gotten the virus under control has done so with a similar playbook and has deferred to health experts when shaping policy and strategy. This includes Taiwan, which, despite having 24 million citizens, suffered only 451 COVID-19 cases and seven deaths. Taiwan developed its playbook for COVID-19 based on learnings from the SARS outbreak in 2013, and the country’s response is being led by experienced professionals who have trained for it for years, rather than politicians. 

Being unwilling to adapt 

One of the hallmarks of great leaders is a willingness to change course when they were proven wrong or new information becomes available. Early in the pandemic, when the virus was not well understood, several governors in the northeastern United States made critical mistakes including not closing businesses sooner or urging the use of masks. Many of those governors have since improved their responses by learning from other countries, following the guidelines for reopening and being willing to change policy quickly, leading to a decline in cases and death rate.

Despite having had a chance to learn from the northeast’s experience, leaders of several states in the southern and western United States neglected to study key learnings and attempted to plot their own course in managing the virus—and reopening their economies. These decisions to ignore best practices have had disastrous outcomes, many states have been forced to close businesses for a second time and as a result, now face a harder road to recovery. 

COVID-19 is a devastating and rare global medical crisis. However, the bigger story is the repeated leadership failures that have exacerbated the short- and long-term damage. Despite possessing immense scientific expertise, robust resources, and more preparation time than countries in Europe and Asia, the United States nonetheless failed at multiple opportunities to stop the pandemic before it caused devastating damage.

The only solace of these four failures of leadership is that they may serve as a powerful teaching moment in history for future generations of leaders to learn from as they face similar and increasingly daunting global challenges. 

Quote of The Week: “Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.” — Winston Churchill

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Robert Glazer is the founder and CEO of Acceleration Partners, an award-winning partner marketing agency ranked #4 on Glassdoor’s best places to work. Robert was also named twice to Glassdoor’s list of Top CEO of Small and Medium Companies in the US, ranking #2 and was recently named one of Conscious Company’s top 22 conscious business leaders. He is a member of Marshall Goldsmith's 100 Coaches initiative. His latest book, Friday Forward, comes out September 1.