Why Emotional Presence Separates Great Coaches From Good Ones: Dr. Marcia Reynolds on 30 Years at the Edge of the Profession

Dr. Marcia Reynolds started coaching in 1995 and helped design the original ICF competencies. Her message today: AI is forcing coaches back to the one thing it cannot replicate — genuine emotional presence.In this episode, Marcia explains how a coach's emotional state co-regulates the client's nervous system, which is the actual mechanism behind coaching breakthroughs. She challenges the idea that following the rules makes you a better coach, and argues that mastery means learning the structure well enough to forget it and be fully present.She also covers why leadership development keeps failing in organizations, what KPIs Maersk used to make coaching skills measurable, and why the profession needs to stop treating human connection as a trend. Her book Coach the Person Not the Problem, second edition, released on March 3rd, 2026.