GOT TO GIVE A DAMN

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    To Brian Beaver, a huge part of being a leader is being able to lead by example.

    The Indiana Public Radio reporter has been a part of IPR for almost 10 years and has spent most of his life in analog broadcast. Although he reports on many different fronts, he has a passion for sports and he spends a lot of time covering high school athletics.

    He has won the Associated Press’s Best Reporter award seven years in a row. But even with all of his experience and awards, Beaver said he likes to think he isn’t a leader in the journalism field.

    “I’m pretty proud of that but it doesn’t mean much because it only measures how my colleagues felt about my work, it doesn’t measure your work as a human being or a journalist,” Beaver said.

    He said when he finds himself having to make a tough call, he falls back on his training and the advice he has gotten from past mentors, since they have had the experience to be able to direct him.

    “No one has all the answers, but the more you do and the more you do well, the more you’re capable of doing it for yourself and teaching the next generation and the next two generations coming up how to do it,” Beaver said.

    Since there are always more less-experienced journalists learning the ropes, Beaver said it is crucial to lead by example.

    “If you’re not doing the things that you’re telling them to do, there’s a problem,” Beaver said. “You need to practice what you preach.“If you’re not doing your due diligence, you’re not double or triple sourcing stuff, you’re not going on the call yourself, if you’re trying to tell a kid ‘you can’t do it that way, but that’s the way I did it on Thursday because I was in a hurry,’ it doesn’t work.”

     He said leaders have to be able to back up what they are saying – if they tell someone to do something, they better know how to do it themselves.

    “You don’t have a better way to prove to people that you know what you’re talking about than to demonstrate that you know what you’re talking about,” Beaver said.

     A lot of Beaver’s ideas regarding leadership relate to sports, since that is an area of his life he is so passionate about. Beaver said the true leader in sports was the teammate who, no matter what, comes to practice and gives it their all. He said that is not something everyone can do and it takes a special person to be able to do that.

     “Those people are the leaders, they’re the captains,” Beaver said. “The captain might not be the best player, it might not be your most skilled player at all. They might be middle of the pack skills wise. But it’s how can they motivate, how can they make your teammates give a damn.”

     Beaver said no matter what people are doing, they need to “give a damn” about it.

     “You can have all the skill in the world, you can have all the talent, you can have the degree, the grades, but you have to give a damn,” he said. “How much do you want to get out of bed at five in the morning to go jump in the pool in January? How much do you want to go chase a tornado at nine at night? You have to give a damn.”