This new column series, curated and authored by members of the Association of Coaching Supervisors (AOCS) puts coaching supervision under the spotlight. This issue: Peter Welch and Jo Birch take the pulse of coaching supervision today.
Let’s begin by stepping down from the balcony, where the global perspective on coaching supervision has been recently explored (Global Supervisors’ Network, 2017; Hawkins &Turner, 2017; McAnally et al, 2019) and take the pulse on the ‘dancefloor’.
For this article, we asked those in our network two simple questions: What are you noticing about coaching supervision in your region? What needs to happen now? Let’s look at responses to the first question.
What is being noticed
In the UK in recent years we’ve noticed the following. Trainee coach supervisors now find supervisees more easily. Most coaches know of coaching supervision. Professional bodies, the European Mentoring & Coaching Council and the Association for Coaching, now run supervisor accreditation schemes while the International Coach Federation has a clear position statement on coach supervision. Some corporate organisations expect executive coaches to be receiving supervision.
Practitioner research has expanded (Birch & Welch, 2019), and membership of the Association of Coaching Supervisors (AOCS) continues to rise. These last three years have seen a widespread recognition of supervision as a significant factor in a coach’s professional development system.
Stepping across to the Netherlands, Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Romania and Spain, there is also a sense of change, as the comments below highlight:
“There is definitely something brewing in Holland about supervision. All kinds of organisations are thinking about it but to my knowledge nothing has been institutionalised”
Bas J van Ommeren (the Netherlands)
“Coaching supervision is at the very beginning in Romania. It is seen among experienced coaches as a powerful way to maximise the effectiveness of the coaching engagement”
Daiana Stoicescu (Romania)
“Coaching supervision is only beginning to find a foothold in the professional environment in Russia and CIS. In the past two years, the activity of supervisors promoting coaching supervision has increased markedly”
Irina Judge (Russia & CIS)
“There is slowly more awareness across the region/country because some of us have been holding webinars and running introductory sessions and are active in the market. Most coaching schools run group supervision sessions and some individual supervision as part of their training programmes”
Louise Schubert (Spain)
There is less a sense of change, however, in some other areas of Europe:
“In Belgium reflective supervision is rather unknown, supervision is linked closely with coaching programmes. Supervision as a standalone service is not well known, except in companies with internal coaches”
Leen Lambrechts (Belgium).
“Still a lot of ‘not knowing’ what it is, how useful and powerful it can be, how necessary and ethical it is, also [for coaches] to stay fit for purpose” Gaëlle Coqueblin (France)
Moving across the equator, Hudson Maila, a trainee supervisor from South Africa, notes that professional body Coaches and Mentors of South Africa (COMENSA), has 12 supervisors registered. He offers ideas on increasing the appeal of supervision (Maila, 2019).
In a sidestep eastwards we reflect on the recent Asia Pacific Alliance of Coaches (APAC) conference in Mumbai, India. Workshops demonstrating coaching supervision were very well attended and a considerable buzz was generated by coaches encountering supervision for the first time. India-based Mahesh Deshmukh reflects: “[India] is just about being noticed, coaches are busy setting up their practices and are paying little attention to their own supervision.”
In SE Asia and China, Singapore-based Felicia Lauw notes, “[the] adoption of coaching supervision is growing like an early shoot pushing through the skin of the seedling. We are still short of qualified coaching supervisors in this region.”
In Australia, Paul Lawrence observes, “The importance of coaching supervision is becoming increasingly recognised in NSW Australia, particularly among coaches with a psychology background.”
We end our tour of the dancefloor in the Americas. Damian Goldvarg, working extensively in Latin America, comments that coaching supervision in that region is very new, however increased access to Spanish speaking courses over the last two years is a factor in significant growth. He says that by the end of 2019, South America is expected to have around 100 trained coaching supervisors.
In Brazil, according to Ana Pliopas, “there is an upward trend: more group supervision groups, more coaches reaching out to individual supervision and more coaches taking supervision training.”
Meanwhile in the US, “while there is still some resistance and misunderstanding surrounding supervision, we are seeing a significant shift in awareness and an increase in coaches engaging in supervision,” say Angela Wright and Sarah Tennyson.
Lilian Abrams, also US-based, says, “The good news is, the term ‘coaching supervision’ is now something people talk about… However, the not-so-good news is that I don’t think there is a notable uptake in actual usage of trained coach supervisors.”
Michael Cullen in Canada is hopeful professional bodies will raise the profile of coaching supervision in the region.
What is needed now?
There’s a call to widen access to supervision; to deepen our enquiry into its practice as part of a system; and to create space for new ‘knowing’.
We close with these suggestions:
- Trust that growth of supervision will be organic. Complexity in contemporary coaching practice, such as myriad stakeholder relationships in internal coaching and team coaching, will create further demand.
- Come together, create experiences, exchange practice, share ideas, build knowledge, engage people.
- Broaden the language base for literature and training – Spanish, French, Russian and Chinese.
- Increase opportunities for a non-partisan accessible database of coaching supervisors; create partnerships with coaching schools; enlighten professional bodies around their potential role.
- Engage with the challenge of describing the difference made by receiving coaching supervision.
- Shift our thinking. Explore capability-based approaches rather than using competency-based framework.
References
- J Birch and P Welch (Eds), Coaching Supervision: Advancing Practice, Changing Landscapes. London: Routledge, 2019
- Global Supervisors’ Network, Supervision of Supervision survey 2017. SurveyMonkey
- H Maila, Coaching from an Emerging Perspective Association for Coaching Supervisors http://bit.ly/2ICdyid Accessed 17 Sept 2019
- K McAnally, L Abrams, M J Asmus and T Hildenbandt, Global Survey of Coaching Supervision released in April 2019 at the EMCC International Symposium in Dublin, Ireland and August 2019 at the APAC Conference, Mumbai, India
- P Hawkins and E Turner, ‘The rise of coaching supervision 2006-2014’, in Coaching: An International Journal of Theory, Research and Practice, 2017. Online: 1-13. http://bit.ly/2OAuQ36
- Following the publication of Coaching Supervision: Advancing Practice, Changing Landscapes, the group of 21 authors recognised that the dialogue continues and we created Advancing Coach Supervision to foster those conversations. Do please visit, engage with colleagues and exchange your views! Email: peter.welch@associationofcoachingsupervisors.com
- Advancing Coach Supervision
Peter Welch: peter@advancingcoachsupvn.com
Jo Birch: jo@advancingcoachsupvn.com