Jerry Colonna is a leading executive coach who uses the skills he learned as a venture capitalist to help entrepreneurs. He is a co-founder and CEO of Reboot, the executive coaching and leadership development company, host of the Reboot Podcast, and author of Reunion: Leadership and the Longing to Belong and Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up. He draws on his wide variety of experiences to help clients design a more conscious life and make needed changes to their career to improve their performance and satisfaction. Previously he was a partner with JPMorgan Partners (JPMP), the private equity arm of JP Morgan Chase. He joined JPMP from Flatiron Partners, which he launched in 1996 with partner, Fred Wilson. Flatiron became one of the most successful, early-stage investment programs in the New York City area. He is based in Boulder, Colorado.
About Reunion
We all want to belong. For executives and managers, to be better leaders—and people—we must create welcoming environments in which ourselves and others feel recognized and have a place. But to do so, we must first face our own need for belonging and how that need is often thwarted. Colonna argues that only through radical self-inquiry can we come home to ourselves and others and, in doing so, create systemic belonging—homes—for everyone.
Many people in power fall into the trap of toxic leadership. But this toxicity can be overcome. Colonna guides us on a journey of reunification with the disowned parts of ourselves, the myths and truths of our ancestors, as well as a deeper connection with those most affected by systems of exclusion. He shows how to apply radical self-inquiry (“How have I been complicit in creating the conditions I say I don’t want?”) and broaden it to include “How have I been complicit in maintaining systems of oppression that I say I don’t want?” And, more important, “What do I need to give up that I love in order to have the systems of belonging that I want?”
The necessary first step is for leaders and others who hold power to see themselves clearly. The vital second step is to see and alter the effects of one’s untended, unhealed wounds and beliefs on those we are tasked to lead.
Doing so, we are then able to reimagine businesses as collectives where a shared sense of belonging thrives. Doing so will cause a reckoning with the accepted definitions of leadership, success, and value.
With its unusual blend of poetry, quotes, and examples from Colonna’s own life as well as the lives of his clients—Reunion is a life-altering guide for today’s complex and divisive world. It’s wise insights and practical advice will help create an inclusive and welcoming workspace, discover the best of who we are, and nurture and support those whom we are privileged to lead.
