Breathing Oxygen: How Positive Leadership Gives Life to Winning Cultures

by Jason Barger

Overview

Positive, healthy thinking is as essential to great leadership and building a winning culture as the air we breathe.

Leading yourself and a team of people has never been more complicated than it is today.

As a leader, every move you make is either breathing life into your organization or slowly killing it. The atmosphere can easily turn toxic, with negativity, blame, and doubt poisoning the culture.

Just like every human being on the planet needs good air to breathe, every organization needs leadership that breathes life into its people to sustain the energy required to complete its mission.

Nine out of every ten employees say they would take a pay cut to work for a more meaningful culture. Are you breathing enough oxygen into your organization to give it meaning?

Over the past decade, leadership expert Jason Barger has advised some of the world's biggest brands—including Deloitte, Wendy's, Caribou Coffee, Ultimate Software, Syracuse University, Nationwide Insurance, NetJets, Kaiser Permanente, and many others—on how to engage the minds and hearts of their people.

In Breathing Oxygen, Barger explores six key mindsets—Clarity, Inclusivity, Agility, Grit, Rest, and Ownership—that bring energy to every team and expand their productivity and your organization's potential.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781637552322
Publisher:	Amplify Publishing
Publication date:	08/02/2022
Pages:	152
Sales rank:	1,068,109
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Jason V. Barger is committed to engaging people's minds and hearts. As the founder of Step Back Leadership Consulting, which was recognized as a Top 20 Leadership Development training and coaching company by HR Tech Outlook, Jason is a sought-after keynote speaker and leadership and culture consultant who has worked with some of the world's biggest brands. His previous books—Step Back from the Baggage Claim, ReMember, and Thermostat Cultures—have been celebrated by the New York Times and global media. He has also been recognized as a Top 200 Thought Leader to Follow by PeopleHum and a Forty Under 40 leader by Business First. In 2004, he received a Jefferson Award, a national award given to ordinary people doing extraordinary things. He is also the host of the hit podcast The Thermostat with Jason Barger.

Table of Contents

Why I Wrote This Book i

The Case for Developing Leaders and Culture vii

1 Breathing Oxygen

Mindsets That Expand 1

2 Clarity

Vision + Direction 9

3 Inclusivity

Participatory + Alignment 25

4 Agility

Possibility + Adaptability 43

5 Grit

Resolve + Toughness 57

6 Rest

The Secret to Elite Performance 77

7 Ownership

Accountability + Action 93

Actions That Expand or Deflate 115

Resources 121

About the Author 125

The Invitation: Breathing Oxygen into Others 127

Editorial Reviews

2022-07-19
Leadership consultant Barger offers a new simile to discuss different aspects of being an effective leader.

As the title suggests, the premise of this slim book of advice for business leaders is that cultivating good leadership skills is like breathing oxygen: “the process of cultivating the mindset and actions that fuel energy, possibility, connection, and progress while flushing out negativity, blame, and toxins.” Positive thoughts and a growth mindset provide this oxygen, while negativity and a fixed mindset deprive one of it, he asserts. Each chapter describes a key element of such a positive culture, including clarity of vision, inclusivity, agility, grit, rest, and ownership (or accountability). These are admirable ideas and important qualities in a leader; there’s no doubt that if more of them practiced these consistently, there would be more positive team cultures. However, although this book may convince readers that these mindsets matter greatly, it offers little in the way of concrete steps toward achieving them. The chapters feature anecdotes that feel less relevant, such as one about a friend’s airplane conversation with former CBS news anchor Dan Rather in the chapter on inclusivity, in which the latter discusses the difference between skepticism and cynicism. The text is also overly repetitive, with passages such as “And the results follow. They…authentically care for their people and create a meaningful culture. And in doing so, the results follow,” and “What we give our attention to greatly affects what we see. The same thing happens in our everyday lives. What we give our attention to greatly affects what we see.” Overall, this book may motivate readers to think and lead positively, but it doesn’t provide any straightforward strategies or tactics for changing mindsets or cultures.

An earnest guide to leadership motivation but one that lacks many specifics.

Kirkus Reviews