About Amy Kay Watson

If you look at my resume, you might see a zig-zag. I see a straight line.

I began my career in ministry, earning my M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary. But I realized early on that while the church wasn’t the right container for me at the time, the calling was undeniable: I was here to facilitate transformation.

That calling took me from the pulpit to the retail floor, from higher education to corporate boardrooms, and finally, to the role of Managing Principal at Reboot Leadership LLC.

Today, I still coach leaders, but I also help them architect the systems that make leadership sustainable.

The Journey: From “Doing” to “Designing”

My path to organizational architecture wasn’t theoretical; it was forged in the fire of operations.

The Retail & Higher Ed Roots I cut my teeth in the real world of operations, working on the floor at Borders Books (where I was eventually fired; a pivotal lesson in the reality of performance management) and navigating the complexities of the President’s Office at The Ohio State University. It was there, on the ground level, that I learned what empathetic management actually looks like when the pressure is on.

The Corporate Crucible From there, I moved into full-time culture change facilitation as a Senn Delaney facilitator, traveling 75% of the time to lead adult learning retreats for major enterprises like Hertz Global Holdings. I learned how to hold the room, how to surface difficult truths, and how to move large groups toward a shared vision.

The Master Coach Over the last decade, I have logged over 3,000 coaching sessions as a Master Certified Coach (MCC) with the International Coach Federation. I’ve partnered with leaders in high-tech, food services, the military, and NGOs.

But after thousands of hours of listening to leaders burn out, I realized something critical: You cannot “yoga” your way out of a broken workflow.

I realized I didn’t want to just help leaders survive the system; I wanted to give them the blueprints to fix it.

The Pivot: Reboot Leadership

This realization led me to launch Reboot Leadership LLC.

We are a strategic intervention firm for Mid-Market Organizations, specifically focusing on Scientific/Technical and Women-Led cultures. We move beyond generic “soft skills” to provide rigorous, data-driven frameworks that solve the tension between High Performance and Humanity.

We focus on:

  • Rebooting the PIP: Transforming performance improvement from a legal checklist into a tool for justice and growth.

  • Resource Architecture: Treating burnout as a physics problem (Job Demands-Resources), not a resilience failure.

  • Leader as Regulator: Teaching leaders to regulate the nervous system of their teams to restore executive function.

Use the Culture Triage Tool at RebootLeader.com

A QUICK PEEK AT MY

TRAINING AND CREDENTIALS:

I’m a proud Master Certified Coach (MCC) with the International Coach Federation. and a Certified Master Trainer in the Coaching Capabilities Builder (CBB) by Challenger. Plus, I’m trained in Internal Family Systems applications for coaching and Presence-Based Coaching. On top of that, I’m skilled in helping people tackle everyday anxiety, often triggered by their inner critic’s voice.

The Person Behind the Architect

While my work is clinical and strategic, my life is deeply human.

I am a person who embraces the messy middle. I identify as a married, monogamous, bisexual woman and a proud member of Middle Collegiate Church in NYC. I believe in showing up authentically in every space I occupy.

On Nature vs. Nurture: I am a homeowner and a natural innovator (Kolbe 3-6-7-3) who has had to navigate a scarcity mindset. I know what it feels like to have a brain that wants to leap and a background that taught me to fear the fall. That tension is exactly why I build “resource architecture” for others; so you can take the risks that matter without burning down the house.

My Working Philosophy: I believe that empathy without accountability isn’t kindness; it’s negligence. I believe that we must diagnose the system, not judge the person. And I believe that if we build the right scaffolding, we can create workplaces where high performance and human dignity coexist.

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