LEADER PROFILE TEN
RICHARD LAPCHICK
Few leaders in any capacity are more admired, honored, or universally respected than Richard Lapchick. His is a voice that is sought out—and heard—by many of the world’s most influential figures, especially those working to help better race relations in this country and around the world. Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr., Jimmy Carter, Jesse Jackson, Muhammad Ali, and Arthur Ashe are among those he has worked with in this capacity over the years.
But that’s only the tip of the iceberg. As founder and director of the Center for the Study of Sport in Society at Northeastern University, Richard has been a pioneer in several areas—ensuring the education of athletes from junior high through the professional ranks, and advocating violence prevention. The center’s Project TEAMWORK was called “America’s most successful violence prevention program,” while its MVP gender violence prevention program was such a success at the high school and college levels that the United States Marines adopted it in 1997.
The center helped form the National Consortium for Academics and Sports, which now includes more than 179 colleges and universities. Because of their efforts, more than 13,000 athletes have returned to school and nearly half of them have graduated.
For more than twenty years, Richard was the American leader of the international campaign to boycott sports in South Africa. In 1993, the center launched TEAMWORK–South Africa, a program designed to use sports as a way to improve race relations and help with sports development in post-apartheid South Africa. In recognition and appreciation of his efforts, Richard was one of two hundred guests specially invited by Mandela to attend his inauguration.
The range of honors bestowed upon Richard is remarkable. The Ralph Bunche International Peace Award, the Arthur Ashe Voice of Conscience Award, and the Women’s Sports Foundation President’s Award are but a few. For six consecutive years (1993–’98), Richard was included among the hundred most powerful people in sports. Even more important, he was described as “the racial conscience of sport.”
Richard grew up in an environment that provided him with a keen awareness of the importance of racial harmony. His father, Joe Lapchick, was a legendary figure in the world of sports, spending nearly fifty years in a Hall of Fame career as a basketball player and coach. It was in those gyms and arenas that young Richard observed his father blending together black and white players for a common cause. The primary lesson Richard learned was that harmony leads to victory, while friction can only end in failure.
“My father was a great leader who just happened to be a coach,” Richard says. “For me, a great leader is someone who has the quality that can inspire people to perform at their highest level and to achieve whatever the goal of the team or individual may be. My father had that quality.”
And so have many others that Richard has worked with and advised over the years. What he has learned is that beneath their differences lie common threads that unite all of them.
“Great leaders come from all walks of life and have very different personalities,” Richard says. “However, in my experience, I’ve found that all successful leaders share several common traits. Being able to listen is a key factor. A good leader must be able to hear people, to sense what they need. A good leader must get the respect of the people very quickly so that little time is spent questioning him or her.
“The good leader must somehow manage to instill confidence into those under him that he’s going to do what’s best for the organization. Then the leader must be willing to listen to what’s being said. He must be unafraid to seek out opinions, to be challenged. That helps bring people on board. The leader must also make sure that negative people know they must either become part of the team or leave the team.”
In addition to being fearless, Richard says a good leader must also be willing to admit mistakes.
“Arthur Ashe was a good friend and a man I greatly admired,” Richard said. “Arthur helped me understand how to say, ‘I was wrong.’ Arthur went against the boycott and played tennis in South Africa. It was a decision he later came to regret. And he was man enough to admit that he’d been wrong. It takes courage to do that.”
Richard acknowledges that the leader’s role has changed over the years. Gone are the days when an iron-fisted leader could rule with absolute authority. Today’s leader, Richard says, faces a much more difficult and complex situation: Be firm, yet also understanding.
“Today, there is a much greater expectation from talented people that a leader will take them under their wing and mentor them,” Richard says. “Many young people today are aggressively seeking that mentorship. Being a mentor has now almost become part of a leader’s job description.”
But what about compromise? When must a leader be willing to bend? Or should he?
“That depends on the issue,” Richard says. “Of course, there are situations when every leader must be willing to compromise. However, on some big issues, you should never compromise your core beliefs. You must always keep in mind that you can lose a battle and still win the war. Focus on the core element and then build a coalition that can be successful.”
The great leaders, the ones who make a difference, regardless of the time in which they lived, never allow fame or fortune to stand in the way of achieving their desired goals.
“I’ve spent time with King, [Cesar] Chavez, Mandela,” Richard says. “They were all great leaders. I also think Mikhail Gorbachev will go down as one of the truly great leaders of this century. Jimmy Carter, as well. One thing that really struck me about all these great leaders was their humility. They were very humble. They never touted their own greatness. They just were great. Even Muhammad Ali, who was anything but humble as a young man, has found a quiet dignity in silence.”