Ian Day, Expert in Coaching and Leadership Development, highlights the crucial shift leaders and coaches must make to thrive in a VUCA world. As co-author of Challenging Coaching, he emphasises that true leadership effectiveness comes from blending support with courageous challenge, all grounded in unconditional positive regard. In a landscape of volatility and need for adaptability, leaders can no longer play the lone rainmaker. Instead, they must embrace core coaching behaviours: asking real questions, listening deeply, and modelling vulnerability. His provocation is simple and powerful: “Who am I being as a leader?”

In this podcast, Sunni Smith reveals how profound transformation happens through simple human presence: not techniques, not effortful doing. This episode highlights challenges coaches and leaders face today: so busy doing means we miss the deeper human connection that unlocks insight, creativity, and trust. The solution: create connections which can bring people back to who they choose to be by seeing the person beyond labels, roles, and identities. Sunni shares vivid stories demonstrating that when a coach or leader truly sees another person, something shifts, resistance softens, insight emerges, innovation becomes possible, and relationships transform.