History now depicts both Reagan and Billy as heroes in those
struggles in the early 1980s with the Soviets. But at the time, both
had to meet those tests with the endurance of the tested leader.
Out of the crucibles, positive leadership. Paradox. Leadership
requires awareness of one’s own emotions and depths; awareness
of multiple forces shaping perceptions and drives; awareness of
the dark and the light and the large consequences of one’s acts.
■ ■ ■Woodrow Wilson’s quote, which heads this chapter—“Absolute
identity with one’s cause is the first and great condition of suc-
cessful leadership”—is personified in Billy Graham, and all of his
leadership principles flow from that identity. A Scottish minister
once said this about Billy: “My first impression of the man at close
quarters was not of his good looks but of his goodness; not of his
extraordinary range of commitments but of his own ‘committed-
ness.’ To be with him even for a short time is to get a sense of a
single-minded man; it shames one and shakes one.”
The peaks of Billy’s achievements and those of the presidents
he befriended tower above us, and we realize, too often, our own
resolve melts away in the furnace. How can we as ordinary leaders
deal with the heat we feel and rise to challenges greater than our
capacities? How can we experience the ignited life that communi-
cates hope and emits light? How can we emerge from our own
struggles and cauldrons with clarity, power, and commitment?
Most of us feel we muddle along rather than rise to greatness.
Fast Companymagazine describes those who love what they do
and are “lit by passion” as highly productive and successful. Yet in
seeking the call—the sense of fit and meaning that fuels that pas-
sion—the writer’s research indicates “Most of us don’t get epipha-
nies. We only get a whisper.” He found that almost all of the
people he interviewed “found their calling after great difficulty...
it’s up to you to do the work of discovery.”
The principles of Billy’s remarkable amalgam of humility and
intense resolve are gifts any leader can seek. One can neither readThe Leadership Secrets of Billy Graham