The Reboot Leadership Equation
Practical skills + radical self-inquiry + shared experiences = better leadership and resilience
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 95%
Colonna's core equation for developing leaders: technical/practical skills alone are insufficient. Adding radical self-inquiry (confronting the drivers and delusions in your own head) and shared experiences (truth-telling in a group that has your back) is what actually produces enhanced leadership and, more importantly, greater resilience — the ability to grow into an adult leader without self-destructing.
Origin
Devised by Jerry Colonna while improvising a talk at Naropa University, a Buddhist university in Boulder, and now the operating model of his firm Reboot.
Core principles
- 01People come to a coach for the 'how' (practical skills); real growth requires the 'why'
- 02Radical self-inquiry means asking the questions we're socialized never to ask
- 03Shared experiences let you tell the truth in a group instead of performing that you're 'crushing it'
- 04The true aim is not just great leadership but resilience — not killing yourself in the process of succeeding
How to run it
- 1
Build the practical skills
Acquire the concrete 'how' of the job and of living — the tactical competence people normally seek from a coach or mentor.
Watch out Practical skills are necessary but on their own they don't make a resilient leader; don't stop here.
- 2
Add radical self-inquiry
Interrogate what actually drives you: your relationship to money, to self-worth, to your parents, why you chose this job. Cut through your own delusions.
Pro tip Ask the 'radical' questions you were socialized to avoid, e.g. 'What will being successful actually do for you?'
Watch out Self-delusion ('everything's great') and attachment are, in Buddhist terms, the biggest contributors to your own suffering.
- 3
Add shared experiences
Sit in a circle of people who care about you and can hold space without fixing you, and discuss the honest answers to hard questions.
Pro tip A structured group, a coach, a therapist, or a confidential circle all work; the ritual and confidentiality matter.
Watch out The entrepreneurial norm of pretending every company is 'moving up and to the right' is the lie shared experiences are meant to break.
- 4
Aim at resilience, not just leadership
Treat enhanced resilience as the real purpose of the equation — growing into the adult leader you were born to be without feeling like crap.
In the wild
Improvising a talk shoeless at Naropa University, Colonna wrote 'practical skills' + 'radical self-inquiry' + 'shared experiences' on a dry-erase board and drew the equation line to 'enhanced leadership + greater resiliency,' then circled resilience as the whole point.
→ Became the codified equation his firm Reboot uses to cultivate leaders.
Before launching Reboot, Colonna and co-founder Ally Schultz ran CEO Boot Camps that pretended to sell first-time CEOs practical skills, then pivoted to tough questions like 'Who would you be without the story of who you are?' in a circle of peers who had each other's backs.
→ Demonstrated the power of shared experience as a component, letting leaders tell the truth instead of performing success.
Common mistakes
Chasing only practical skills
Leaders assume the fix for a struggling company is more skills (public speaking, finance, email). Colonna argues the real gap is usually self-awareness and radical self-inquiry, not competence.
Skipping shared experiences out of ego
In the entrepreneurial community people are socialized to lie that everything's working. Never sitting in a truth-telling circle means the unsorted baggage stays hidden and eventually 'the price is paid in tears.'
Is it for you?
Best for
First-time founders and executives who have the technical skills but feel exhausted, isolated, or on the edge despite outward success
Not ideal for
Someone seeking a purely tactical, skills-only playbook with no appetite for introspection or group vulnerability
From the transcript
“the equation is practical skills plus radical self inquiry plus shared experiences.”
“That is the process of actually talking about the craziness that goes on in your head equals greater leadership.”
“I get you want to be a great CEO. I get you want to be a great executive, but what I really care about is…”
“we're socialized to [ __ ] not only ourselves but everybody else, right? All our companies are moving up and to the right.”
“imagine sitting in a group of people who can just hold that space without fixing you”
From the episode
How have I been complicit in creating the conditions I say I don’t want?
Jerry Colonna (CEO of Reboot, executive coach, former VC)