Belonging at ICF Converge 2026

Key Takeaways

• When you intentionally incorporate belonging into coaching engagements, leadership strategies, and member experiences, people engage more fully and performance improves.
• ICF Converge 2026 explores practical strategies for incorporating belonging into coaching conversations, leadership development, and professional communities.
• Coaches and leaders can watch for subtle cues to tell whether someone is feeling like they don’t belong.

Think about the last time you attended a conference alone. Within minutes, you notice people hugging, laughing, and catching up as if no time has passed since they last saw one another. At the break, groups form. You hold your coffee, scan the room, and wonder where you fit.

No one is excluding you or being unkind. But nobody notices you standing alone or offers the small invitation that would make joining in feel easy.

That gap between not excluded and feeling like you fit in is belonging. And we are addressing it head-on at ICF Converge 2026, we are addressing belonging head-on this year by asking the question: “What does it take for people to feel safe enough to show up fully in a community, at work, in coaching sessions, and in ICF chapter events?”

Belonging is one of the core themes at Converge 26 in Washington, D.C., which features sessions that highlight how belonging shapes leadership outcomes, coaches’ roles in supporting belonging, and how to coach across differences. Member Resource Group (MRG) members and those interested in learning more about them can connect over lunch and continue conversations about fostering connection and inclusion.

Belonging isn’t only a conference topic; it is the often overlooked piece of the DEIB acronym. When people feel they don’t belong, it affects retention and morale, whether at work, as members of professional associations, or in coaching engagements. It doesn’t matter how good the benefits are, how skilled the leaders are, or how great the offerings are. If people don’t see themselves as part of the group, they’re less likely to contribute, return, or recommend the experience—including coaching sessions.

It’s easy to focus on tools, techniques, and credentials and overlook a more fundamental question: Do people feel like they belong here? 

A Coach’s Role in Nurturing Belonging

Regardless of race, background, or identity, most people have experienced moments where they felt like the “only one” or questioned if they belonged.

People rarely vocalize that they feel left out. Instead, they disengage or leave the coaching engagement, job, or professional organization altogether. Coaches and leaders must take the first step and consider:

• Who feels this space is for them?
• Who is opting out because they don’t feel like they belong? 
• How can coaching at senior levels integrate belonging into strategic decision-making, rather than treating it as an HR or DEIB side project?

Coaches play a key role in ensuring that clients feel they belong. That’s why it’s one of the core themes at Converge 26.

How to Tell When Someone Doesn’t Feel They Belong

In a coaching session, the signs are subtle. A client who doesn’t feel they belong may:

• Give short, one- or two-word answers to open-ended questions.
• Display minimal emotional expression.
• Be reluctant to explore sensitive topics.

It’s easy to misread these signals as a “resistant” client. Often, the space simply hasn’t felt built for them.

Belonging at Converge

Nurturing belonging requires intention and skill. Several sessions at Converge 26 will help coaches explore how they can intentionally create environments where clients, leaders, and coaches feel safe enough to contribute, grow, and thrive.

Belonging Is Power: Coaching at the Highest Levels of Leadership

Belonging shapes who speaks up, who takes risks, and who stays. At senior levels, it shapes decisions too.

In my interactive session, Belonging Is Power: Coaching at the Highest Levels of Leadership, we’ll explore what contributes to (or deters from) belonging, and I’ll share a framework you can apply immediately to help leaders create environments where people and performance thrive.

The framework will help coaches and leaders:

• Recognize how belonging shows up (or fails to) in everyday experiences.
• Name the patterns that leave people feeling like the only one.
• Find the practices, language, or structures that unintentionally signal “this isn’t for you.”
• Use lessons from real-world challenges and complex coaching engagements to bring belonging to your sessions.

If you’re at Converge 26, join me at this session, Tuesday, October 29 at 2:45 p.m. (New York).

Coaching Across Difference: Building Trust Through Authenticity

Coaching across differences can sound abstract or like something to tackle after you’ve mastered the core competencies, frameworks, and coaching models. But for many clients (and coaches), their gender identity, sexual orientation, and cultural background are central to all their experiences.

In our session, Coaching Across Difference: Building Trust Through Authenticity, Kat Sweeney, ACC, Victor Gonzalez Caleano, PCC, and I will explore the deceptively simple, high-stakes question: “What helps both coaches and clients feel safe enough to show up fully in a coaching session when their identities are misunderstood or unseen?”

Learning how to bring belonging into your coaching practice is about authenticity, humility, and a willingness to learn more than it’s about perfection.

If you’re at Converge 26, join us for this session, Friday, October 30 at 12 Noon (New York).

Member Resource Group Luncheon

Extend the conversation about belonging during the MRG Lunch, Thursday, October 29 at 1:30 p.m. (New York), a dedicated space for connection and shared learning across the global coaching community.

Coaches, allies, and advocates who are part of one or more of ICF’s five MRG communities can dive into conversations about broadening their perspectives and learning how diverse experiences strengthen the coaching profession.

Knowledge About Belonging You’ll Take Home From Converge 26

Each session on belonging offers attendees a deep dive into the importance of nurturing belonging in coaching engagements, corporate settings, and ICF chapter events. The big takeaway: a coach can be highly skilled, ask powerful questions, and meet credential requirements, but still miss the mark if the client doesn’t feel like the space was built for them.

When people feel like they belong and that a space is for them, they volunteer more context without being prompted, engage more fully, and are more likely to continue a coaching engagement and experience true change.

Belonging and the Future of Coaching

The stakes for ensuring belonging in coaching are especially high. When clients have a negative experience, feel misunderstood, or like outsiders, they may give up on coaching altogether, writing it off as not being for “people like me.”

When we treat belonging as a necessity rather than a “nice to have,” it becomes a powerful force for shaping outcomes, access, and transformation. It is the foundation that makes every coaching session more effective for every client. The next time you walk into a room or open a coaching session, ask who might be standing there holding their coffee alone.

Join me and others in conversations about belonging at ICF Converge 2026 so that together we help leaders create environments where people and performance thrive.