THE ESSENTIAL COMPONENTS IN CHOOSING LEADERS: WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE
On June of 2023, the The 22-foot carbon-fiber and titanium craft, called the Titan, was deployed by a Canadian expedition ship, the Polar Prince, to travel nearly 13,000 feet down to the infamous TITANIC shipwreck site. The Titan lost contact with the surface ship an hour and 45 minutes after it started to dive, the U.S. Coast Guard said. It was later discovered to have imploded due to the enormous pressure of being over 13,000 feet below sea level.
A major flaw in this tragedy was the lack of WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE in that the leadership for the company who built and run the Titan sub program was selected on the basis of diversity at the cost of wisdom, knowledge, and experience. Instead of hiring retired military personnel with decades of experience in submarine engineering and operations, they selected people based on diversity.
I would submit that such thinking reflects back to RUSH as attaining to EARTHLY, SECULAR WISDOM over GOD’S WISDOME. The sheer lack of experience in choosing employees for such a critical mission based on diversity as opposed to wisdom, knowledge and experience reflects back to the top -namely the CEO, RUSH, who lack wisdom as the key, foundational flaw in this terrible tragedy that ended with the loss of life for five people, including himself. The central point is that true wisdom comes from God, not man.
PROVERBS 2:6-8 says:
"For the LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding; he stores up sound wisdom for the upright; he is a shield to those who walk in integrity, guarding the paths of justice and watching over the way of his saints." (Proverbs 2:6-8)
It appears from the outside that the leadership at the top, who ran the Titan SUB tragedy lacked godly wisdom which in turn, lead to their lack of proper knowledge-which ended in death. According to an article entitled, “TITANIC TOUR LEADER LOVED RISK AND CALLED SAFETY A ‘PURE WASTE” in the Business Section of Bloomberg.com, by Laura Nahmias and Guillermo Molero, Published June 21, 2023 at 12:24 PM EDT and Updated June 22, 2023 at 9:41 AM EDT, said this. “Stockton Rush, founder of the company that owns the missing submersible craft that was on its way to view the Titanic wreckage, has said-“safety” is a pure waste…I mean if you just want to be safe, don’t get out of bed, don’t get in your car, don’t do anything,”. CEO and Founder Mr. Rush said that in a 2022 podcast with CBS reporter David Pogue.
In an article by www.m.slashdot.org entitled “Titan Sub CEO Dismissed Safety Warnings as ‘Baseless Cries’, Emails Show”, they wrote that warnings over safety over OceanGate’s Titan submersible were repeatedly dismissed by the CEO of the Sub company. This was made evident through email exchanges with a deep sea exploration specialist by the name of Rob McCullum who was involved with the company. According to BBC, Deep Sea Specialist Rob McCallum told Oceangate CEO Stockton Rush that he was potentially putting his clients at risk and urged him to stop using the sub until it had been classified by an independent body.
>>> Mr. Rush responded, saying that he was: “tired of industry players who try to use safety arguments to stop innovation”. The tense exchange ended after OceanGate’s lawyers threatened legal action. Mr McCallum had told Mr. Rush. “I think you are potentially placing yourself and your clients in a dangerous dynamic,” he wrote to the OceanGate boss in March 2018. McCallum went on to say this to Mr. Rush: “In your race to Titanic you are mirroring the famous catch cry: ‘She is unsinkable’.”
I would submit that FIRST: Mr. Rush appear to have had a sizable ego that clouded his better judgement. SECOND, He lacked the true, biblical wisdom and knowledge to be a true success in this specific endeavor. And THIRD: As a result, he along with four others perished as a result. But it didn’t need to be that way. God’s Wisdom and Knowledge is TIMELESS, SIMPLE and ESSENTIAL to life.
In an article entitled, “WATCH: ‘OceanGate’ CEO’s DEI Rant-Hiring ‘Old White Guys Not Inspirational” by Jack Montgomery, Friday, June 30, 2023, quoted Stockton Rush, CEO of OceanGate as saying that he “prioritized diversity over experience when putting together crews.
He quoted CEO RUSH as having said, “WHEN I STARTED THE BUSINESS…OTHER SUB OPERATORS [WERE] OUT THERE BUT THEY TYPICALLY [HAD] GENTLEMEN WHO ARE EX-MILITARY SUBMARINERS…A WHOLE BUNCH OF 50-YEAR OLD WHITE GUY,” HE SAID DURING A 2020 INTERVIEW”. “I wanted our team to be younger, to be inspirational…25 -year-old who’s a sub pilot or a platform operator or one of our techs can be inspirational”. I think it’s abundantly clear that Mr. Rush choose UNWISELY. UNWISELY is different from the lack of wisdom in that sense that Mr. Rush not only ignored God’s wisdom and knowledge, but that he chose to go all in with Human WISDOM.
Job 12:12 says, “Wisdom is with the aged, and understanding in length of days”. While this was most likely a sarcastic response by Job to his friend Bildad’s assertion in 8:8, it was nonetheless true that wisdom comes with age, a true the widely accepted in the ancient east an all cultures throughout the ages.
I would submit that RUSH lacked both WISDOM and UNDERSTANDING. The tragedy is under investigation. If true, this shows a lack of UNDERSTANDING. Sadly, history has tragically repeated itself once again. I am reminded that God’s formula for good leadership is essential for us to follow in that:
- A leader must be WISE.
- A leader must be UNDERSTANDING meaning one who is EMPATHETIC.
- A leader must be experienced in their area of expertise and at some level of leadership.
IN CLOSING I WANT TO TAKE ANOTHER LOOK AT WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS ABOUT WISDOM AND UNDERSTANDING IN AN EFFORT TO HELP YOU AND I MAKE WISE DECISIONS HERE FORWARD AS LEADERS AND PARENTS.
Deuteronomy 1:13 says, “Choose for your tribes wise, understanding, and experienced men (LEADERS), and I will appoint them as your heads.” The key words are “WISE AND KNOWLEDGEABLE” WHY ARE THEY KEY? Because these words reflect attributes of God. Leadership that reflects the attributes of God IS REAL LEADERSHIP and leadership that fails to do so does not. Let’s break down this passage in Deuteronomy:
FIRST: Moses, in Deuteronomy speaks to WISDOM in the sense that it reflects the ability to bring harmony even when great differences exist. RUSH failed in ignoring his most experienced employees. He failed to listen to the person who brought great concern in order to eliminate the laborious and time consuming work to make the sub safe in light of bringing harmony to himself over that of the mission. That’s number one.
SECOND: Moses is speaking to an UNDERSTANDING in choosing leaders: Scripture here refers to one’s ability to penetrate the realities of life from God’s perspective, and to deal fairly with all parties in a dispute. CEO RUSH Not only failed in this regard, but he was actually repulsed by God’s UNDERSTANDING and WISDOM in light of his earthly understanding. And it cost the deaths of five people-including himself.
IN CLOSING: KNOWLEDGE is the broad experience gained by living life, by watching people, and by making correct choices based on God’s word. Sadly, on June of 2023, the The 22-foot carbon-fiber and titanium craft, called the Titan, was deployed to nearly 13,000 feet down to the shipwreck site and imploded due to the enormous pressure of being over 13,000 feet below sea level-instantly killing all on board. I submit that Mr. Stockton Rush, founder of the company IGNORED, or didn’t posses GODLY (TRUE and REAL) knowledge and wisdom to begin with. Instead, he chose EARTHLY WISDOM according to human EGO in putting innocent lives in the hands of young, hip, inexperienced young people with no real experience and rejected experienced “white men with decades of experience”, who possessed the wisdom and knowledge of having run, engineered and operated, deep sea subs over decades for the military. And we can only conclude the very best education and those with the most wealth mean nothing without God’s WISDOM and KNOWLEDGE. And this is SADLY the REASON FOR THIS TRUTH.
