A Lesson in Leadership from a Genuine Friend

By Jeff Becraft

 

When I was a freshman, 18 years old, at Virginia Tech, I met a guy by the name of Rick Harman. Going in as a freshman, there were over 20,000 students at the school. I would say it was a little bit overwhelming for me. I really was more of an introverted guy and it was a big pond to swim in.

I got involved with the FCA group on campus and Rick was the president of that group. Rick had a profound impact on me at a very important time in my life… much more than he ever knew at the time (but I have told him since). He was a senior at that time. He had gone to Virginia Tech on a football scholarship, being an all-state safety in high school. He wasn’t that big… a little bigger than me. He had gotten injured and was no longer playing football and now he was leading the FCA there on campus.

What made Rick so profound to me was he was a genuine person. He himself would tell you that he was far from perfect, but that wasn’t the impact on me. I wasn’t looking for someone that could necessarily dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s. He wasn’t someone who got your attention through some amazing talent or being overtly gifted.

He was a guy who was genuine. What you saw is what you got. He was utterly sincere.

Rick was extremely competitive. I remember at one of our intramural basketball games, Rick had gotten fouled or something while he was coming down the lane and he immediately grabbed the guy by his shirt and pinned him up against the wall, talking to him the whole time letting this guy know he was not happy with what just transpired.  It did not lead to anything other than that and the two were separated.

But Rick, being the person that he was… you could tell his reaction bothered him. He wasn’t just someone to walk away from something like that and just think, “Okay, so what, I lost my temper for a few seconds,” and that was okay with him.

At our next game the following week, while we were doing warm-ups  (and you didn’t have a lot of time to warm up before one of these games, you just had a few minutes), Rick was not warming up.

He was over in another part of the gym, apologizing to this guy from the week before. That was Rick Harman.

He was genuine.

He was competitive, and sometimes he overreacted… but he was compassionate and merciful, and he would go tell people he was sorry. He was standing there talking with this guy. He didn’t just pass by him and say, “Hey, sorry about last week,” and move on.  He was talking with him.

Even with being such a competitive person, for Rick, the upcoming game was not what was most important – what was most important was reconciling with this other guy.

This is the impact he had on me. He was a real person. He wasn’t just some cardboard cutout. He wasn’t someone who just put on some image. Again… he would tell you himself… he was far from perfect, but his genuineness shown through.

In a society, where we try to make our image so vivid and want people to know beyond a shadow of a doubt how much we have our act together and how secure we are and how in control of things we are and how everything we’ve got is just right…

It makes me wonder.

There are times I ponder how different things would be if we all, as people, were genuine.

We might mess up, we might make mistakes, but we own those mistakes, and we say we’re sorry to people that we’ve hurt.

That, to me, is a leader… and that’s why Rick had such a profound impact on my life.

It’s a great day to have a great day!

 

Jeff Becraft is the Director of Our Place of Hope and the Director Emeritus for Youth Corps and has dedicated much of his life to helping shift the vision of people’s lives. Our Place of Hope is a paradigm shift for people living with mental illness that encourages them to regain meaning, purpose, and hope for their lives. You can connect with Jeff at  [email protected].