LEADERSHIP
LESSONS | Igniting Leaders
Applying the Principles
To develop this application section, we turned to Leighton Ford.
Why? Two reasons:
First, Leighton was mentored by Billy, starting when he was
in high school. His local YFC group hosted the young evangelist.
“I’d seen him preach,” Leighton says, “and we were all rather in
awe of his unusual gift. We had all kinds of expectations.”
Although seven hundred people showed up at the meeting,
only one responded by coming forward. “I’m sure Billy could see
I was disappointed. He came over and put his arm around me,
gave me a big hug, and said, ‘Leighton, I see you have a concern
to win people to Christ. I believe if you stay humble, God will bless
you. I’m going to pray for you.’ He really encouraged me, and I’ve
never forgotten that arm around the shoulder.”
For decades thereafter, many of them ministering at the heart
of Billy’s organization, Leighton thrived under Billy’s steady
encouragement and door opening.
The second reason to turn to Leighton for this chapter is his
personal focus on mentoring young leaders. It’s his central min-
istry. “When our son, Sandy, died at age twenty-one,” he told us,
“God gave me a desire to help other sons and daughters. There
was a sense of extending what Billy had meant to me with that
arm around the shoulder.”
In the early 1980s, Leighton saw “a whole new generation of
leaders under forty emerging all over the world.” He decided to start
a new organization. “At the time of Hurricane Hugo, which came
through Charlotte, we held a strategic planning meeting. Then I
went up to the lake for a little retreat, and it was as if God said to me,
‘You won’t make a difference by multiplying programs but by invest-
ing in people.’ I thought about how Jesus had preached to multi-
tudes but also poured his life into a dozen people. I felt very much
led to bring together a dozen young men and women whom I knew.
They became what we call our ‘point group.’ Now they’re all about
The Leadership Secrets of Billy Graham