The question of where supervision sits in the coaching process finds practitioners and researchers strongly in agreement
How relevant is supervision to the coaching process? If it is merely a comfort blanket, is the idea of reflection necessarily a bad thing? Or is turning to it for comfort an admission of failure in the coaching process? Or is supervision the essential founding stone of our coaching culture, assuring that best practice and consistency are continually applied? In our previous issue and within the CIPD’s HR communities, we asked whether you thought supervision was the founding stone of ethical coaching or merely a comfort blanket. Here are some of the replies.
Patti Stevens
Director, The Coaching Supervision Consultancy
‘Foundation stone’ is a very appropriate supervision metaphor in that supervision plays an integral and active function in supporting, helping and sharing the tensions and load of the coach, while attending to the sound structure, building and development of the coach’s work and the systems it operates in.
‘Comfort blanket’ is also an appropriate supervision metaphor in that the coach can relax and feel safe and protected to share and explore matters arising from their practice and that the supervision is giving a ‘duty of care’ to the coach and to their practice and the relevant systems.
Sam Humphrey
Independent coach and former head of global coaching at Unilever
If a coach told you that they were not interested in their own continuing professional development, took no steps to ensure the quality of their work and paid no attention to the impact their work was having on them or their client, would you employ them?
At the core of many coaching approaches is a belief in the importance of reflection. Supervision is crucial for a coach to ensure they have space, time and support to reflect on their work, their performance, their development and their client. The coach assessment process at Unilever had supervision as a pre-requisite at pre-screen supervision was a ticket to play.
In the same way that there are no barriers to entry to being a coach, there are also no barriers to entry to becoming a coaching supervisor I find that a more thought-provoking issue.
Charles Jones
Head of coaching, RightCoutts
I believe that supervision is critical to the delivery of high-quality transformational coaching. It is, therefore, mandatory for all Right coaches and is provided via one-to-one meetings by qualified, approved and accredited external supervisors. It provides a number of varied and tangible benefits, not least in the opportunity for coaches to consider the impact of coaching work on their lives and helps identify their personal reactions to their professional work (transference and counter transference).
Fundamentally, though, it is about improvement and evaluation of the service to the client (organisation and individual). I would find it unthinkable to coach without it.
Adrian Starkey
Head of coaching and executive development, DDI Europe
Supervision within the coaching profession is essential. However, in the absence of unified professional guidelines the form that supervision takes varies widely.
A practical solution that we adopt at DDI is that of a ‘Community of Practice’. In the context of mutually understood confidentiality agreements, all DDI coaches share their preparation, reflection and follow-up notes with colleagues working on any given account. In addition, a senior coach facilitates the exchange of ideas and provides final supervision and input to individual engagements.
In ‘The Wild West’ of coaching, such practical steps help to assure all parties that consistency and best practice is continually applied.
Margaret Chapman
Coaching psychologist and senior fellow (leadership), Manchester Business School
If we accept that a coach walks alongside an individual on a dialogic journey to raised potential, then it makes sense for the coach to have his or her own confidante, mentor and guide if both are to avoid venturing up blind alleys.
For me, supervision is not only the foundation stone for ethical practice; it is a dynamic relationship central to facilitating the coaching meta- competencies of cognitive, emotional, systems and even spiritual intelligence.
As a supervisor, I never cease to be amazed at the speed with which coaches move towards greater self-confidence, belief and the competence to achieve tangible, bottom-line results for themselves and their clients.
Carole Gaskell
Founder and CEO of the Full Potential Group
A coach who is passionate about their work has a supervisor. No-one is infallible. Coaches often operate in a vacuum and feedback is essential to our growth. We don’t know what we don’t know. Fast-tracking our presence, reflecting on whether we really are calling our clients to their highest potential to being their absolute best and deepening our understanding of the dynamics of our relationship with our clients is critical.
Are you truly focusing on the biggest area of work that needs to be done right now for your client? To what extent are you making the link between the client’s personal potential and connecting this with the potential for their organisation? Have you missed any essential clues?
A supervisor is an invaluable sounding board and holds the space for a coach’s true brilliance to elicit the full potential in others. Who is YOUR supervisor?
Rory Macquisten
BUPA executive coach and sports coach with the UK Cross Training Association
For the last two years I have conducted supervisory assessments of sales managers using the coaching process with their advisers. The tool is beneficial in several well-known ways and they can become the foundation stone of ethical coaching but that depends on the nature of them, how they are carried out and the ability of the assessor. They only become a comfort blanket if we give in to fear and fail to empower our coaches after thorough training. It seems to me that to think of assessments as a comfort blanket is an admission of failure.
Eunice Aquilina
Member of the core faculty, i-coach academy
Supervision is not a comfort blanket; it is an essential ingredient of coaching and, in particular, internal coaching. In an internal model there is the potential for conflict of interest as well as a greater risk of collusion. The coach needs to maintain boundaries and be transparent in their work with clients. The BBC’s supervision model aims to support the coach to maintain the standards, ethics and integrity in their practice and to protect both the client and the BBC. The supervision model (adapted from the Hawkins and Shohet model) is the foundation stone of the internal coaching practice. It is formative (helping the coach to develop approaches to coaching), normative (working with the coach on their practice, dealing with ethical issues, development, self-management, quality control and monitoring issues), and restorative (offering the coach support and a safe space to learn).