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Leadership and the Longing to Belong
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The Idea
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. Its 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.
THE BOOK
Leadership and the Longing to Belong
Building on the success of
Reboot and the concept of radical self-inquiry, executive coach Jerry Colonna encourages leaders to consider the ways they have been complicit in, and benefitted from, the conditions in the world they say they’d like to change and shows them the path to creating new systems of inclusion for everyone.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Building on the success of Reboot and the concept of radical self-inquiry, executive coach Jerry Colonna encourages leaders to consider the ways they have been complicit in, and benefitted from, the conditions in the world they say they’d like to change and shows them the path to creating new systems of inclusion for everyone.
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.
Stories of Your Belonging
Our stories of the heart are mostly the stories of the longing to Belong.
When we hear each other’s stories with love and kindness, it provokes a deep dialogue with ourselves and, eventually, with others.
I was born in 1983. It took me a long time to come out to my family. I had to move across the United States, build a successful company, and sell it in order to feel safe enough to risk a rejection that otherwise could have mortal consequences. I had to run myself ragged personifying ambition to distract myself from the fact that who I projected to the world was in deep misalignment with how I was most comfortable. I had to break under the pressure of keeping such a large amount of myself in shadow, distancing myself from those I loved. I had to get tired of covering my self- exploration in shame, darkness, and secrecy. And since I began the process of integrating, I have carried a persistent inquiry: “Why was this so hard?” I believe our reunion can help us bring compassion to ourselves as we explore the answers. We all have queer ancestors. All of us. What did it cost them to hide? Who didn’t survive? For those who accepted themselves and their desires, how did they create space for themselves? I know it’s impossible to answer these questions. The answers aren’t the kind of thing you put in most family histories. So answering these questions is not my goal. Honoring my ancestors, and myself, is. As we ponder the ways that our ancestors have been Othered, have been allied with whiteness or other oppressive systems, we explore the interior and exterior world that they passed down to us. It’s up to us to integrate into those worlds or continue to dissociate, disown, and fracture ourselves. The direction we choose has implications for the heart of our organizations, communities, and society. The history of my family includes stories dating back to 1734. In a carefully preserved record of the history of the Baumanns, my fourth great- grandfather is quoted as saying, “We Baumanns have been accused of ancestor worship.” For him, what is described as “ancestor worship” represented the need to inform future generations of their ancestral Belonging. I am humbled they wrote so much for me. Pieces of me come alive taking in words my ancestors put to paper 150 years ago. As I read each generation describing their ancestors in their own words, I identify strong character traits given to descendants. I see moments of my own upbringing connected to a thread that stretches hundreds of years and across the Atlantic Ocean. In the words of one family patriarch, this history is a “heritage of inestimable value, and far greater than an abundance of material possessions could ever have been.” Devotion to God was a cornerstone value for the Baumanns. As the Swiss population expanded in the second half of the 1800s, Christianity’s role in education and daily life was changing. My ancestors came to the United States in part because public education in Switzerland included religious lessons taught by “unbelieving teachers.” How could the Baumann children be God- fearing if their teachers were not? My ancestors departed Switzerland in 1869 and made their way to Ohio. Within a year they purchased a farm in Henrietta Township. In Henrietta, they based their life around the Methodist Church. But not surprisingly, that carefully preserved history passed down from one generation to the next has no mention of queer identities or relationships. By the time they immigrated to America, Christian ideals about procreative sex were codified into law to discourage what Christians viewed as immoral and deviant sexual behaviors. Even as time marched on and our understanding of sexuality and gender progressed, non- normative expressions were marginalized through medicalization. In the early twentieth century thinking of homosexuality as an identity began to take hold, along with judgments of that identity being unwell, disordered. The values of my family, modeled after the church, did not welcome the expression of homosexuality or queerness. My ancestors’ homosexuality or queerness would have been repressed and likely included mountains of shame and fear. My queer ancestors no doubt experienced dissociative coping mechanisms ranging from deliberate and conscious management of feelings to completely unconscious manifestations of protection. I know that were I born earlier in my family history; I would not have had the luxury of accepting myself in the way that I do now. When I look back, it’s scary to see that self- hate might have been a more “logical” coping mechanism than self- love for many of my ancestors. In the late 1800s and early 1900s expressing queerness meant throwing out the most accessible forms of love, safety, and Belonging. In my darkest hours, struggling with my own queer inclinations, I had to accept there is no guarantee of safety. Safety was not promised to my ancestors, and it is not promised to me. The conditions of my life simply made safety more likely if I accept and love myself than if I don’t. When I had this realization, I began to understand my ambition, my desire to be so far away physically from my family, and the transformative power of a financial safety net. How can we make self- love and self- acceptance safer? It’s an elegant question to help us find agency as humans, as leaders. As was true for our ancestors, some people in power are making safety and self- acceptance more at odds with one another. In 2022, eighty- seven years after the Reich Office for Combating Homosexuality and Abortion was established, we have an attorney general in Texas who attempted to compile a list of transgender people. This same AG has instructed the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate parents of transgender children. The government- sponsored animus has forced many families to relocate to other states out of precaution for not only their kids’ mental and physical well- being but their entire families’ well- being. And Texas is not alone. This year across America legislation banning gender- affirming care and restricting name changes is on the rise. Statehouses in 2018 introduced nineteen bills. In 2022 that number was 800 percent higher. Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay Bill” in 2022 is attempting to unname, dismember, and unwelcome the parts of us we have barely been able to liberate. Taking any step to make self- acceptance safer challenges these actors. A rainbow sticker intended to let a student know they are safe, using language with intention to include more people, the curiosity to inspect a feeling or judgment are just a few examples. In some cases, we are taking steps that our ancestors would have been deeply afraid of. In some cases, we are taking steps we are afraid of. My own journey of leadership and self- acceptance required the closest in my family to inspect their inherited judgments and our ancestors’ passed- down sense of safety. My generation of Baumanns includes a larger number of queer identities every year. We will continue doing the work of welcoming the parts of ourselves our ancestors didn’t have the opportunity to love. In my journal, in my thoughts, and in my leadership the unclaimed queerness in my family is made whole. The ancestors who struggled silently are invited to speak; the shame they carried is allowed to be set down. In this way, my reunion deepens my resolve and gives me strength. My reunion gives me the ability to call on my ancestors to stand behind me when I need the bravery to speak the unspoken, to name the unnamed, and to love the unloved. I imagine when we heal ourselves, we heal our ancestors. I imagine they are cheering for the expansion of our hearts, as extensions of their own. I imagine they can see what we see, feel what we feel, and grow as we grow. Virginia Baumann
As I was reading an early draft of Reunion and ancestors were heavy on my mind, my fifth grader brought home a family history assignment. It was filled with the kinds of questions that assumed a breezy, lighthearted nostalgia and easy answers. They were the questions I knew would surface some wounds and require deeper conversation with my daughter. We worked through the assignment together. In that spirit, I write for those who have come up out of dust, risen from ash, bloodstained soil, come up out of anonymity, given new names that were not their own, those without perfect bloodlines and traceable pedigrees. I write as a descendant of enslaved people stolen from our ancestral home, brought across what is called the Middle Passage. I write for the descendants of people murdered in the Holocaust, those whose ancestors knew genocide, for people with unknown stories, separated families, those for whom jagged, uncertain, and broken lines leave question marks, penciled- in theories, and dead branches on our family trees. I’m writing so we can feel our own worthiness despite what we have been told, and in spite of what we will never know. We can still contact the broken Belonging from our pasts to honor and mend those painful stories without being undone by them. To live in an out- group means that, on some level, your sense of Belonging will be predicated upon the motivation and willingness of the dominant group to be inclusive. Extending hospitality and humanity to the Other is often experienced as a threat to one’s own position. The difficult work to undo systemic Othering is most often left to those who have the least power to effect change. Marginalized people are expected to do the heavy lifting of bringing people along with us, depleting ourselves in ways that impact our health, safety, and well- being. We expend inordinate amounts of whatever energy we have left to convince others of our worthiness and our humanity, as though we are the ones responsible for having created the conditions of exclusion in the first place. Reunion is a call to shift the labor back to those who bear the most power to change it; its hope is to rebalance the responsibility so that we are each doing the work that is ours to do. At the same time, I must also resist the urge to assume that the lessons in this book do not apply to me. It may be safe or even tempting to position myself only as the “other,” but that would be a dangerous deflection of my own responsibility. I must examine how I, too, am implicated in upholding systems of Othering. If I fail to interrogate my own actions, I risk working in opposition to the greater good. Reunion requires each of us to see ourselves more clearly. It was impossible for me to read this book without exploring my own relationship to Belonging. It is through my life experiences that I am reminded that Belonging and Othering are not distant or abstract concepts. They are the facts and conditions of my existence, amplified by the Black, queer, female body in which I live. I suppose having marginalized identities has a way of doing that to you, making it easy to start in close, working concentric circles outward until the whole picture comes into frame. While I don’t remember the very first time I felt the sense of not Belonging, I do remember the feeling of it in my body from an early childhood dream. I must have been five or six at the time. In the dream, I was standing on the sidewalk in front of the apartment building where I lived in Portland on Tacoma Street, asking, then pleading, and finally screaming so that I would be heard, seen, and felt by my loved ones who were walking past me and through me with hollow eyes, moving toward someone or something in the distance that was not me. The same visceral feeling I experienced in that dream has come back many times throughout my life when I fell out of Belonging. I can still see my small self crumpled on my knees on the concrete, isolated and alone; it is as imprinted now as any waking childhood memory I’ve ever had. Even writing of the dream now, I am struck by just how deep and native the desire to belong is. To call it bone- deep, or cellular, even atomic doesn’t quite capture it. As humans, we long to belong, in our families, among friends, in our workplaces, our communities, and so on. And yet, there is that which divides and others us, conscious and unconscious acts and human- built systems that sever us from our deepest yearnings and most basic human needs. Choosing tribalism, exclusion, and separation above connection and care undermines the very things we want so desperately. The dissonance between how we live and what will save us is ever- growing. Creating systems of Belonging, whether as leaders or as humans, means remembering and re- membering all the daily fractures that threaten our wholeness. Belonging is what happens when we decide and act upon the idea that inclusion is vital to our survival, far more than Othering. Belonging is embodying the refrain of “your story is my story” that is echoed throughout Reunion. It is, indeed, medicine for the world. What gives me hope now is that I continue to hear the desire for systemic Belonging spoken into the world through language, justice movements, art, science, and poetry, through murmurs and shouts in the chorus of our shared stories and experiences. For who among us has not felt Othered? It is through this courageous contact with our own silence, exile, and disavowal that we can emerge from this perilous territory of disconnection. Our responses to Belonging/Othering can be imperfect. I have witnessed and even taken part in that phenomenon of undermining one’s own sense of Belonging, or the never enough that Jerry writes about. In a well- intentioned effort to avoid the pain of being excluded by others first, I have conspired in joining the effort, creating the very exile for myself that I feared in the first place. Allowed to go unchecked, the legacy of systemic Othering can stealthily twist itself around the psyche resulting in a false safety- seeking, and soul- crushing, preemptive isolation. The more we feel ourselves worthy of Belonging, in the truths of our pasts, the more space we create for ourselves and others to belong. It requires us to stay intact enough to believe in our own worthiness and right to Belonging in this world, even when we feel inadequate to demand the thing that is our birthright. When I think of Belonging, I believe there is no one who is not worthy of it. What if we all actually believed and acted as though everyone deserved no less than the holy trinity of love, safety, and Belonging that Jerry speaks of? How would that shift the culture of Othering, violence, and separation that is so destructive? I ask myself these questions and find myself going back again and again to the many origins of the word belong, one of which has its roots in the old English langian, meaning to grieve for, pine, be pained by, yearn for. As I read this translation, I cannot help but find hope in the ease which comes like an out breath that says I am home. I am with. I am connected to(o). CHRYSTAL
There is a proverb that comes from one of the indigenous languages spoken in the country in which I was born, Zimbabwe. In chiShona, they say, “mwana wamambo, muranda kumwe”— “the child of a king is a slave in another kingdom.” I did not fully appreciate the wisdom found in that proverb until as an African woman, now identified as Black, I found myself in a distant country, far from my people, where I have been told in many times, and in different ways, that I did not belong. The country I now call home, Ireland, still embraces the complexities of systemic global Othering. I am now part of a society that the “gift” of acceptance and some semblance of Belonging comes from the attachment of colonial labels on my identity and humanity. While writing this essay, it dawned on me that by choosing to migrate, I became an “other.” I would now be viewed through a stereotypical, prejudiced, and even hate- filled lens. I became a “slave in another kingdom.” Speaking honestly, it was the reemergence of the Black Lives Matter movement after the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery— when the American systems of injustice and brutality against Black people were beamed across the world— that I embarked on a journey to reconnect with my roots. In my new home country, I have been called a “settled foreigner” and “a blow in” by those who choose a polite form of Othering. My children and I have faced overt racism that is rooted in centuries of systemic Othering. The continued use of segregation, apartheid to disenfranchise, target, humiliate, and kill ethnic minoritized bodies sadly means that truly Belonging is unattainable if acceptance and who belongs is defined by the dominant ethnicity. I have learned from my own journey that Belonging is found within you; it is in the heart and mind not dictated by others. Systemic Othering focuses everything on whiteness forgetting that ethnically marginalized people across the globe have their own indigeneity that cannot be encapsulated in terms such as “BAME” (Black Asian and minority ethnic), “POC,” “BIPOC,” “dark- skinned,” or “colored” labels. When I look at these white- centered acronyms, it is important to clarify that the experience of systemic Othering is not monolithic. The American, African, European, and Asian Othering of Black folks like me is geographic and needs contextual understanding. In the UK, for example, until recently, BAME was the socially acceptable term used in policy and academia. It boxed all Black and brown people together on the theory that they all suffered similar systemic injustices. This is quite the contrary, as the Asian community, out of those labeled as POC, hold political, economic power in the UK. Although boxed together with other marginalized ethnic minorities, the Asian community have power, privilege, and proximity to whiteness to perpetuate racial injustices against Black people, as witnessed by the Windrush Scandal, where former UK Home Office Secretary Priti Patel, herself a daughter of South Asian parents who fled Uganda and sought refugee status in the UK, could oversee and wrongly detain, deny legal rights to, threaten deportation of, and wrongly deport at least eighty- three people of Caribbean descent who had lived all their lives, worked, had families, and considered themselves British. Like the “divide and conquer” mechanism used by colonial powers to subjugate, I have found that it is still used widely as a weapon to maintain a hierarchy of power held by white supremacy. I reflect on this quite a lot as a parent of two Black Europeans. Will a time come when, fueled by the rising right- wing influence in Europe, I and my children will be told to pack our belongings and leave? After twenty years living in Europe, I can say that citizenship does not guarantee acceptance. Nor does it bring you any closer to truly Belonging. In a world hell- bent on Othering, anti- Blackness and the breaking down and destroying of individuals has been normalized. It has created a generational stream of internalized self- hatred and unrooted people. As I said before, systemic Othering is specific to geography and context, and as I strongly refuse and will continue to stand against my labeling with white- centered acronyms, I have now come to understand the acceptance by some Black and Indigenous people in the United States of these terms. There is a history, geography, and context to my Black and brown American friends naturally referring to themselves as persons of color (POC) and Black Indigenous people of color (BIPOC). On the other end of the conversation, I always face an internal war with my ancestors who scream at me, urging me never to accept being bound by the chains of white- centered labeling of my identity. Adjusting to this seismic identity shift can take a toll on the mental and physical health of those who face exclusion. Finding a therapist who understands the nuances of the impacts of not Belonging in your own society can be very difficult. This is because the effects of racial oppression, in my experience, is not only to dehumanize but also to place barriers that stop individuals from finding their power and identity, which helps maintain the cycle of oppression. Racism comes from a place of chosen ignorance. Recently at a conference, someone walked up to me and greeted me by someone’s else name, someone who I later found out was also Black. I told them I wasn’t that person and asked why they would assume I was that person. Their answer was “YOU all look the same.” Making other people feel like they do not belong comes not only through building a massive wall across the border or creating tough visa requirements, but also through actions and words that cut deeply to the core of one’s sense of self. I have been in white spaces all my life, and I have never mistaken one white person with the next, and I know fellow African or Black people wouldn’t either. The thing is . . . I was born and raised on the African continent. My ancestors, who faced and fought against brutal racial segregation, also learned the ways of the white colonizers they needed to survive. But they never threw away their customs, language, songs, and traditions. Through apartheid, British colonial rule, they suffered, were brutalized, and were even killed, but it was done with their bodies and minds rooted on the red alluvial soil and in the shade of the acacia trees. These are the cultural values, identity, and history they passed on to me as a child, which, after many years and across may seas, have become my light, shield, and sword. I am from a tribe of warriors. My totem, Masibanda (Lioness), signifies that inside flows the blood of people who fought and triumphed over lions. I stand in their strength and power. I do not have to justify my existence or Belonging to anyone. I can define myself outside the confines of systemic Othering. I am not a person of color, colored, or any of the other terms that have been created to minimize my existence. I will not be viewed through a lens that aims to Other me. I have and will every time remind myself to emancipate myself from the bondage of systemic labeling when the world casts doubt in my mind. This message is for my children, and for those who are continually told: YOU DO NOT BELONG. We all belong, no matter what part of the world we are from or what society we find ourselves living in. This book tells my story. And my story is a mirror. It is one of loss, separation, seeking acceptance, Belonging, and the great reunion. When I first met Jerry in 2019 at a book reading, little did I know that our ancestors had preordained the meeting. From stranger to mentor and, now, brother, Jerry, has taught me that, despite our different paths, we can finally be reunited with those whose stories are our own. JOY- TENDAI
About Jerry Colonna
Jerry Colonna is the CEO and cofounder of the executive coaching firm, Reboot.io. A highly sought after coach and speaker, he is also the author of Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up.
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