Why become a Coach Supervisor?

All you have learned through your practice as a coach; all the rewards and challenges of helping clients learn and grow, could help equip you to create a learning and growing space for other coaches. 

Taking a step into a supervisor role is often a natural progression for experienced practitioners that recognise, often through the experience of being supervised themselves, the potency and vitality enhancing nature of reflective practice. In my view this goes some way beyond the ‘policing’ of proficiency and safety and into more tender territory.

In this blog, I hope to show you how making the transition from coach to coach supervisor could be more than just a logical ‘next step’ for you – how, in reality it could be the opening of a door into deeper and more courageous practice.

Some history…

Years ago, when I started out on the road to ‘helping’, there was a recognition that, in addition to ‘ordinary caring’, offering oneself as a helper required something more than a desire to help:  

Consciously developed skills, knowledge, self-awareness, discipline, a sense of the beliefs one held about people and the world we inhabit – an examination of our underpinning philosophy of practice. Knowing what you were doing, how you were doing it and with what intent and agreement was central.   

Absolutely core to my own training and development was a peer approach; rigorous feedback based on the lived experience of relationship, self and peer assessment, the acknowledgement of power and a desire not to set ourselves up as all-knowing experts at being human.  An approach that was significant and important at a time that opened up a whole new realm of professionalisation and questions about how best to go about training, assessing and validating competence to offer help proficiently and safely. 

This also created a more explicit need for people who could act as ‘supervisors’ of practice.  A place for reflecting on all of the above, ensuring the essence of good practice was maintained and new insights, adjustments to interventions and so on were aired and explored. The sharing of questions, issues and dilemmas was a welcome composting ground for new learning, fostered by the good counsel and supportive, informed engagement of the supervisor.

What about coaching?

It’s taken time for the concept and practice of Coaching to be recognised as also requiring an articulation of philosophical assumptions, along with the robust skills and personal development essential to apply in practice. It is an activity which is needed now more than ever in the territory of work and organisational life.

At the heart of this relationship there are many of the same essential requirements of all good helping - listening, active on ongoing exploration of what you are bringing to the work and a good dose of self-awareness and skill.

The last few years have significantly shifted understanding of personhood in the realm of work.  That we can do no other than be more – share more - of our whole selves in order to function, yet alone thrive. A good deal of ground has been gained in Coaching being seen and accepted as fundamental to developing and supporting people in the workplace. 

What about you?

In my own Coaching and supervision practice - reflected in the experience of many other coaches I know - the current topsy turvy nature of work and life and the undeniable intermingling of the ‘personal’ and ‘professional’ are ever more present, complex and compelling. The need for a space to explore my ways of working; to reflect, replenish, restore and be supported to do justice to my clients - their openness, willingness and commitment - whilst navigating these blurring boundaries of help, is something that is difficult to quantify in words. It is invaluable.  As a supervisor, I relish holding the space for and with others in this way, meeting in our humanity, shared investment in another’s process, awareness and commitment to discovery.    

Investing in yourself to develop as a supervisor has many benefits; deepening personal practice, a chance to explore creative approaches in facilitating learning and of course the opportunity to work with other coaches who appreciate the nourishment and potential of reflective practice. All whilst exploring more of the shifts needed in the focus of attention: wider frames of reference that take into account the relational and systemic dynamics of supervisor, client, coach, commissioner and the complexities and nuances of context, to name a few. It is a space that allows for working with the existential questions more frequently aired in the Coaching relationship, in all relationship.

It is, ultimately, a chance to give back to others, drawing on some of the hard-won lessons learned from experience, which perhaps echoes my own response to why? The shift from practitioner to supervisor of practitioner is one that calls for ongoing mindfulness and engagement with self as learner, self as helper, self as instrument.  An invitation for revisiting and further articulation of the values and principles through which we offer ourselves in this space.  Claiming the influence, authority and experience of both supervisor and practitioner and ensuring that ‘the work’ is as grace-full, considered and wholehearted as it can be.  I have the greatest appreciation of the powerful role of ‘space-holding’ that being a supervisor offers. Drawing on wisdom, fostering freedom from judgement, encouraging the continuation of curiosity and courage - all echoing the helping relationship itself but refined, distilled to essence, expanded to encompass a wider field of vision and consciousness. Nurturing, stretching and unapologetically claiming its space, value and presence.  

For more information on our Association for Coaching accredited Coaching Supervision programme WHOLE PERSON SUPERVISON - COACHING SUPERVISION WITH HEAD, HEART AND SOUL click HERE or email info@oasishumanrelations.org.uk

Marion Ragaliauskas