21 Great Leaders: Learn Their Lessons, Improve Your Influence (22 page)

“Christianity is not a white man’s religion,” he told the crowd, “and don’t let anybody ever tell you that it’s white or black. Christ belongs to all people.” The blaring front page headline of the
Sunday Tribune
, March 18, 1973, declared, “Billy Graham: Apartheid Doomed.”
¹⁵

Over his ministry career, Dr. Billy Graham has traveled to more than 185 countries and territories, preaching the good news of Jesus Christ to live audiences totaling more than 200 million people, plus hundreds of millions more via television, radio, and other media. In a ministry career that has spanned more than six decades, there has never been the slightest hint of moral or financial impropriety. And there’s a good reason for that.

In 1948, Dr. Graham and his top advisers—Cliff Barrows, Grady Wilson, and George Beverly Shea—drove to Modesto, California, for a citywide evangelistic campaign. A number of ministers and evangelists had been involved in highly publicized scandals. During a break from the Modesto meetings, Graham assembled his ministry team to talk about the harm these scandals did to the Christian cause. Then he asked them to retire to their rooms for an hour and make a list of all the problems and temptations evangelists faced. They came back together at the end of the hour and found the lists to be nearly identical.

“In a short amount of time,” Billy Graham later recalled, “we made a series of resolutions or commitments among ourselves that would guide us in our future evangelistic work.”
¹⁶
Though this series of commitments didn’t have a formal name, it has come to be known as “The Modesto Manifesto.”

The commitments focused on several areas. First, they agreed they would never manipulate audiences with emotional appeals to increase donations. Second, they agreed never to exaggerate the size of the crowds to inflate the reputation of the evangelist. Third, they agreed that all the money collected and spent by the ministry belonged to the Lord—and must never be misused. Fourth, they agreed not only to avoid immoral behavior, but also to make sure they were above suspicion at all times. “We pledged among ourselves to avoid any situation that would have even the appearance of compromise,” Graham later said. “From that day on, I did not travel, meet, or eat alone with a woman other than my wife.”

If you want to make sure you will never be accused of a financial or moral scandal, you have to make some decisions at the outset. You have to build some protective shielding around yourself. You have to lay down some rules for yourself and your organization, and see that those rules are followed at all times without exception. I call these rules “moral firewalls.”

A firewall is a barrier designed to prevent the spread of fire and heat. Firewalls prevent structural collapse. Moral firewalls prevent moral collapse. A firewall is a zone of protection you hope you never need, but if the need ever arises, you’re glad it’s there. It keeps you from ever being scorched by temptation—or burned by false accusation.

Your moral firewall consists of a number of commitments and promises to guard your integrity: “I will never cheat on my taxes,” “I will never pad my expense account,” “I will never place myself in a compromising position with someone of the opposite sex,” and so forth. Here are some suggestions for building your moral firewalls so that you can have a reputation for character like Billy Graham’s:

1.
Honestly assess your own situation
. The Modesto Manifesto may be a good starting point for building your own moral firewalls, but you may need to add some additional rules that specifically address your own situation. For example, if you are the driver in a carpool, make a commitment to drop off those of the opposite sex first so that there’s never even a hint of scandal.

2.
Be accountable
. Set up a group of “accountability partners” who will ask you tough questions and challenge your actions when necessary. Admit your struggles to them and seek their advice. A wise leader doesn’t go it alone. As a leader, you may have hundreds of acquaintances and thousands of admirers, but you still need three or four close, trusted friends who will care enough about you to hold you accountable.

3.
Consider the consequences
. Always weigh the costs and benefits of your actions. Don’t simply tell yourself, “I won’t get caught.” Ask yourself, “If my actions are exposed, what do I stand to lose?” For example, is the momentary gratification of an illicit affair worth losing your marriage, losing the respect of your children, and damaging your reputation for integrity? If you are willing to put your guilty pleasure above all else, you shouldn’t call yourself a leader.

4.
Pray
. Maintaining your moral and ethical purity is a spiritual battle. Ask for God’s help in rejecting temptation. Don’t ever think of yourself as a “victim” of temptation. You are responsible for your moral choices.

I told the story of my Christian conversion to a crowd of nearly fifty thousand people at a 1987 Billy Graham campaign in Syracuse, New York. I was amazed and humbled to again be on the stage with Dr. Graham, Cliff Barrows, and George Beverly Shea. After the event, I returned to my room at the Holiday Inn, still on a spiritual high. I turned on the TV to catch up on the sports scores. As I flipped the dial, a raw pornographic scene flickered on the screen.

People have accused me of being naive, and maybe I am, but I didn’t know sexually explicit material was available on a hotel room TV. I didn’t have to pay extra for it—it was a free channel. I continued flipping through channels, looking for ESPN—but I remembered what I had seen. I wondered if King David felt this way after his first glimpse of Bathsheba bathing. I hadn’t gone looking for temptation, but it had found me. Now I had a choice to make.

I thought,
Why is this happening? I’ve just experienced the greatest spiritual high of my life!
The battle was on—and I decided to fight it. I fought that battle with weapons of prayer—and prayer won. God’s Spirit was victorious over my human weakness.

It was a privilege to meet Dr. Graham, interview him, and share a speaker’s platform with him. The Fourth Side of Leadership is character, and there are few greater examples of leadership character than Billy Graham.

T
HEODORE
R
OOSEVELT

The Man in the Arena

We must have the right kind of character—character that makes a man, first of all, a good man in the home, a good father, a good husband—that makes a man a good neighbor
.

T
HEODORE
R
OOSEVELT

I
n July 2011, during a speaking trip to Wisconsin, I stayed in Milwaukee’s historic Gilpatrick Hotel. In the hotel lobby next to the main entrance, there is a photo display and a bronze plaque on the wall that reads:

Here’s what happened: Theodore Roosevelt, a former Republican who had served two terms as president of the United States, was running for a third term as the standard-bearer of the Progressive Party (nicknamed the Bull Moose party). Roosevelt had just had dinner with his campaign staff and top supporters in the hotel dining room. He and his staff went outside, where a car waited to take him to the Milwaukee Auditorium to speak. He turned to wave to his supporters—

And an unemployed saloon keeper named John Schrank pushed his way through the crowd. Schrank had stalked Roosevelt for weeks, traveling thousands of miles for this chance. He raised a .32-caliber pistol, aimed it at Roosevelt’s heart, and squeezed the trigger. He fired from such close range that he could not have missed. Roosevelt stood unflinching.

Roosevelt’s stenographer, a six-foot-tall former football player named Elbert Martin, threw himself at Schrank and dragged him to the ground, knocking the gun out of his hand. As Martin and another campaign aide subdued the gunman, Roosevelt pulled the sheaf of speech notes from his vest pocket. The bullet had passed completely through the manuscript pages, which were stained with blood. It was a fifty-page manuscript, folded double, so the bullet had to pass through a hundred layers of paper—not as bulletproof as Kevlar, but very effective.

The bullet had penetrated the muscle directly over the former president’s heart. Blood stained his shirt, vest, and the lining of his army coat. It hurt, but he’d felt worse. He turned to his driver and said, “Take me to the auditorium.”

Roosevelt’s aides urged him to go to the hospital instead—but he wouldn’t hear of it. He said, “I am going to deliver my speech.” He climbed into the car and it pulled away.

Minutes later, Roosevelt arrived at the Milwaukee Auditorium, stepped up on the stage, and raised the bloodstained manuscript so everyone could see.

“Friends,” he said, “I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible. I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose.”

A gasp went up from the crowd. Roosevelt waived off the crowd’s concern.

“Fortunately,” he said, “I had my manuscript, so you see I was going to make a long speech, and there is where the bullet went through. The bullet is in me now, so I cannot make a very long speech, but I will try my best.”

The speech he proceeded to give was largely impromptu, departing considerably from his prepared remarks. He spoke for nearly an hour, and was pale and shaky when he finished.

At the hospital. X-rays showed the bullet had buried itself in a rib. Doctors decided to leave it there.

Though he campaigned valiantly, he lost to Woodrow Wilson.
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Physical courage, persistence in the face of opposition, and a dogged commitment to a cause—Theodore Roosevelt had these traits in abundance. But he wasn’t born with them. Early in his life, he made a decision to build the traits of a leader into his life—or die trying.

Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (nicknamed “T.R.”) was born October 27, 1858, in New York City. He was born to wealth and privilege, the son of businessman Theodore “Thee” Roosevelt Sr. and socialite Martha “Mittie” Bulloch Roosevelt. His boyhood was largely shaped by his chronic poor health. Asthma attacks tormented him, especially at night. The sensation of suffocation terrified him.

We don’t have to look far to find out what motivated young Theodore’s lifelong pursuit of good character traits: he idolized and idealized his father. In a letter to his friend Edward S. Martin, dated November 26, 1900, T.R. wrote:

Theodore Sr. encouraged T.R. to take up vigorous exercise to overcome his health problems. Two family trips abroad—a tour of Europe when he was about twelve and an extended stay in Egypt when he was about fourteen—deepened his admiration for his father and helped shape his view of the world.
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Theodore Sr. gave his son a role model of character to live up to. As George Grant observes in
The Courage and Character of Theodore Roosevelt:

When Theodore was thirteen, he was traveling alone by stagecoach to meet friends in Maine for a summer camping trip. During a stop, two bigger boys teased and taunted him. They circled around him, threatening to beat him up, challenging him to defend himself. They filled young Theodore with fear. Finally, without regard for his own safety, he threw himself at them. They held him as he struggled, laughing as he tried vainly to free his arms and land a punch.