But he came back “with his tail between his legs,” recalled
Billy. “Niebuhr simply refused to see me.”
He never did succeed in meeting with Niebuhr. But despite
the occasional failure, Billy continually worked to bridge all sorts
of divides. It’s what effective leaders do.
LEADERSHIP
LESSONS | BridgesApplying the Principles
As a boy, Billy took a cat and shut it in the doghouse with the
family collie overnight. The next day, the cat and dog came out
friends forever. Billy joked, in his autobiography, that the incident
may have sown the seeds of his vision for ecumenical relation-
ships and his own bridge-building tendencies.
If leadership effectiveness is largely a function of how well you
can get dogs and cats to get along, or at least how well you can
mobilize disparate groups to work with people different from
themselves, then what are the ways to do this? How do you begin
to build those connections to people and groups not naturally
inclined to work with you? Billy’s approach reveals several key
principles.Show Interest; Admit Limitations
Bridge building sounds good, but it’s almost always humbling.
One of the best ways to build bridges is to admit our peculiarities
and limitations up front. After all, in most cases they’re readily
apparent to others anyway.
“Always try to associate yourself closely with those who know
more than you,” said Dwight Eisenhower, “who do better than
you, who see more clearly than you do. Don’t be afraid to reach
upward... such associations will make you a better person.”
When Billy Graham went to Britain in 1946 just after the
war, he carried some American cultural baggage. For years he
had lived the Youth for Christ motto: “Geared to the Times,
Building Bridges