The Leadership Secrets of Billy Graham

LEADERSHIP

LESSONS | Courage

Applying the Principles

Leadership and fear—the two seem opposites. A leader steps out

boldly, “fearlessly.” Yet fear and leadership are intertwined—not

just in the “great moments” of high danger. We daily must make

the decisions and take the risks that call for courage.

Embrace Courage—In the Ordinary, and in Chaos
When we read about Billy Graham’s taking the risk of going
to Russia and experiencing the drama of the international fallout—
or we read of Eisenhower at Gibraltar or Churchill calling the
nation to courage as the Nazis bombed London—we may feel far
removed from their experiences. Yet the essential principles that
enabled them to rise to the challenges are available to all who lead.
We all experience fear. It is not just the soldier on the battle-
field who knows how vulnerable he is; we intuitively sense how
even our body language—wrongly interpreted—can incite criti-
cism, or a fumble of words can humiliate us, or the wrong deci-
sion ruin what we value most.
Research says the most common fear among us is of public
speaking—something every leader must do at one time or
another. In contrast to life-and-death situations, some may con-
descendingly smile at that fact. Yet the research makes sense. Up
in front of a crowd, a foolish slip of the tongue or an embarrass-
ing blank response can intently focus all those eyes on our fail-
ure. And we know the more we think about such unpleasant
possibilities, the more likely we’ll get tongue-tied or empty-
headed. The consequences can be severe.
If we have courage, it means we are overcoming fear, and
leaders—in addition to natural human fears of cancer and head-
on collisions—have the added weight of communicating unpleas-
ant realities or being misunderstood. For instance, one young man
who reluctantly agreed to lead a meeting afterwards heard him-

The Leadership Secrets of Billy Graham