The Sinking of the Titanic: Leadership Lessons for Business Owners

What can businesses, and dot-coms in particular, learn from the sinking of the Titanic? A business owner doesn’t have to visit the ocean floor or float around in frigid waters to appreciate the truths this disaster brought to light.

“We have struck iceberg. . .sinking fast. . .come to our assistance.” Those words burned across the airwaves late on that cold evening in 1912. But those last taps of Morse code ultimately became the epitaph for the lives of the 1,200 people lost on the Titanic. The so-called “unsinkable ship” was doomed as it slowly sank into its watery grave.

Why did the largest, most advanced ship of the century sink on its maiden voyage? History enthusiasts may already know why, but it’s worth remembering: It wasn’t the iceberg that caused the disaster. It was something else.

The real tragedy of the Titanic was that leadership failed. And today’s business owners can glean from this shared understanding to avoid making the same leadership failures themselves. This article explores some of the top lessons from the Titanic’s unfortunate end.

Eight Leadership Lessons from the Titanic

Here’s a fresh perspective on eight different lessons that business owners can take from the leadership failures aboard the Titanic.

Leadership is always responsible

Leadership is more than a wooden figurehead. Leadership is not a position, a job title, or, in this case, merely being called the Captain of the ship. Leadership is not just power, ego, and pride. Leadership is ever-present, touching, motivating, talking, and checking, barrier-removing, training, preparing, breathing, and moving about.

The maiden voyage of the Titanic was meant to be Captain E. J. Smith’s retirement trip. He should have been headed for the easy life. All he had to do was get to New York. But instead of stepping onto dry land to a cushy retirement, he went down in infamy. The world remembers him only as the failed leader who ignored not one, not two, but seven iceberg warnings from his crew in the crow’s nest and other ships.

Biggest is not the best

The Titanic was the largest ship in the world when it set out on its North Atlantic voyage. It took the ship more than 30 seconds to actually turn its course away from the iceberg because it was so big. And despite those attempts to turn, it was too late.

Today’s leadership lesson from that? The larger an organization becomes, the more inflexible it is. A big organization tends to have bureaucracy: rules, regulations, policies, and procedures that, while helpful during routine days, can bog down decision-making in moments of crisis. Too often, key actors inside a business need to get permission to make a decision.

To be successful, many of today’s businesses need the agility to change course quickly. And a lot of that boils down to flexible leadership that delegates well.

Rank-based privilege has a potentially catastrophic influence

Rank existed on the Titanic, to the ruin of the third-class passengers. It wasn’t just that there weren’t enough lifeboats; their lack of privilege meant many passengers were trapped below decks when calamity struck.

Rank exists in the business world, too. It manifests in lots of ways: reserved parking spaces, the white-collar vs. blue-collar distinction, the difference between people who have an office and those who work in the cubicles, and more. And in some ways, rank is essential; it helps a business operate smoothly. Somebody has to be in charge.

But what happens when the business ship sinks? Who gets in the lifeboats, so to speak? Who gets focus when it’s time to talk about severance pay? When it’s time for layoffs, who’s the first to go?

The best leaders treat everyone like a priority when disaster strikes. They plan ahead so they can treat everyone equitably, even when times are tough. And in return, they find themselves with a team that doesn’t just meet expectations; they exceed them because they have good teamwork. They’re all rowing in the same direction, so to speak.

The truth changes (in a sense)

In 1912, society believed that the Titanic was unsinkable. They were so confident in its strength and stability that they didn’t even bother to have enough lifeboats; they only stowed enough for half of the passengers.

Thankfully, today’s maritime safety laws prevent such a critical mistake from happening again on modern cruise ships, but are business leaders making similar mistakes with their own projects? It’s all too easy to hope that the strategy used in the past will continue to work. It’s easy to think that the business ship can’t sink when things are going well.

But that complacency today can lead to failure tomorrow. Great business leaders stay adaptable, developing new processes and constantly evaluating their attitudes and habits so they can manage changes efficiently, even when what they believed was true completely changes overnight.

Technology is never a substitute for leadership

When technology fails, leadership must prevail. Captain Smith said years before the Titanic’s voyage, “I cannot imagine any condition which would cause a ship to founder . . .Modern shipbuilding has gone beyond that.” In short, he relied too heavily on the ship’s technology when he should have led well.

Many of today’s businesses rely too heavily on technology; they don’t hire leaders. Instead, they designate managers who “babysit” the technology rather than lead. They’re not equipped to handle a crisis or address disastrous company situations. The best leaders use technology to inform their decisions, but at the end of the day, they use their best judgment for all decisions, including both vital ones and routine ones.

Leadership is always training

As the stern of the Titanic lifted out of the water, the crew and passengers struggled with the lifeboats. There were no pre-voyage safety drills and no emergency rehearsals. The crew members were unfamiliar with their responsibilities. The boats weren’t loaded properly, and only one boat went back to try to recover survivors. Leadership failed them by not equipping them to handle the scenarios the night presented.

But similar stories happen all too often in the business world. For example, a customer service team might not be adequately trained to handle a large volume of customer complaints, and when a marketing campaign goes south due to unintentionally offensive messaging, the team might not be able to handle the volume of angry calls. The poor company response could cause their business’s reputation to sink.

Good leaders train themselves, but they also take time to ensure that they train their team. Whether that’s crisis management training, online safety training, or something else, the right training can have a big impact on business outcomes.

Leadership looks below the surface

The greatest danger (and the greatest opportunities) lie below. The ocean in 1912 was like glass, deceptively dangerous. The biggest part of that fateful iceberg lay below the surface, unseen. Like steel fangs, it tore at the rivets along 300 feet of the Titanic’s hull. Those below, the “crew and steerage,” felt and saw the damage first.

It’s often similar in business scenarios: the people at the bottom of the organizational chart tend to see the trouble brewing before leadership does. Maybe a salesperson notices that lots of their customers are switching to a competitor because of pricing differences, or a customer service representative notices that lots of people are complaining about order fulfillments from a specific warehouse.

Granted, leadership might learn about those problems eventually, but they’ll find out sooner if they’re tuned into what’s going on “underneath the surface” of their business. Their front-line employees often have fresh ideas that can help them address problems quickly (or prevent them outright).

Leadership looks beyond the horizon

Success causes problems. A good “Captain” is on the lookout for changing trends, changing needs, storms, and icebergs. For example, Sam Walton identified a need to adapt, and Sears didn’t. Apple computers saw a need before IBM. The vision of the Sony Walkman existed in Akio Morita’s mind before RCA. Many dot-coms were prepared; many were not. Get the picture? Be out there scanning the horizon for the next change.

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