Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up
Jerry Colonna
HarperBusiness (June 2019)

If you don’t care abut knowing who you really are, why should anyone else?

In his classic work, Denial of Death, Ernest Becker acknowledges that everyone dies a physical death but there is another form of death that can be denied: That which occurs when we become obsessed with fulfilling others’ expectations of us. I was again reminded of that as I began to work my way through Jerry Colonna’s book. He believes — and I agree — that personal growth and professional development are interdependent.

“I believe that better humans make better leaders. I further believe that the process of learning to lead well can help us become better humans. By growing to meet the demands of the call to leadership, we’re presented with the chance to finally, fully, grow up.”

Much of value has been said about the courage needed to speak to power rather than preserve neutrality in a moral crisis. It also takes great courage to answer truthfully questions Colonna poses throughout his lively, eloquent narrative. For example:

In Chapter 1: “How did my relationship to money first get formed and how does it influence the way I work as an adult? What was the belief system around money and work that I grew up with?”

Chapter 2: “How can I lead with dignity, courage, and grace that are my birthright? How can I use even the loss status and the challenge to my self-esteem that are inherent in leadership to grow into the adult I want to be in the world?”

Chapter 3: “In what ways have I depleted myself, run myself into the ground? Where am I running from and where to? Why have I allowed myself to be so exhausted?”

To these I presume to add another that I have struggled to answer honestly for years: “What I am still tripping over — while trying to go forward — that was somewhere in my past, perhaps even childhood?”

As Colonna explains, people “need to understand the ‘why’ of what they do, and ultimately, who they are…and when they do that, when they look in places they’ve avoided, they often get stuck. They get scared. They get lost in their fears and in old patterns of self-loafing. So, mired in their self-criticism, they think they are the only one who hasn’t a fxxxing clue as to what they’re doing or how to live…Worse yet, they’re too dxxxed afraid to admit that they’re making shxt up. And they stay stuck in these lonely leadership bubbles, spinning. Scared. Lonely. Afraid of being found out.”

Colonna examines many of the same issues that countless others have, including Randy Pausch in The Last Lecture and Clayton Christensen in How Will You Measure Your Life? He acknowledges that he has a tendency to challenge people with questions they don’t want to answer or even consider. Ask yourself, “What is my work to do to become a better human?” “What kind of a leader am I?” And finally, “What kind of an adult am I meant to be?” He asks challenging questions because he cares so much about helping as many people as be can to help themselves

Jerry Colonna is an aggressive advocate of what he characterizes as “Radical Self-Inquiry.” If there’s a significant need for it in your life as you struggle to answer tough questions such as those three, this book is a “must read.” It won’t provide the answers you seek but will, I believe, help prepare you to locate them.