“If I were here alone, these woods could be a frightful place. But now I have met my friend who loves me. We can talk to the road’s end.”
CS Lewis
What is Coaching Supervision?
As the coaching profession matures, the idea of professional supervision is coming into focus. It is still becoming defined and is not a requirement, but it’s a strong and enriching practice. As a Marriage and Family Therapist, I was both supervised and a Supervisor, and the parallels are compelling.
While individual and group Mentor Coaching focuses on your understanding and skillful application of the eleven ICF Core Competencies, Coaching Supervision is a professional practice designed to help you in your personal and continuing learning and self-reflection as you build strong alliances with the people you coach. In Supervision, you may work through things like:
Your thinking about a coachee’s process and issues that have become complex.
Helping you to use your personal presence and curiosity even more deeply: How should coaches use (and potentially recover from) their own responses, reactions and even triggered moments?
Ethical issues that need special attention and confidentiality.
How to evaluate your limiting beliefs and assumptions.
How to take care of yourself along the way.
Maybe your supervisor can help you to reflect on the personal tendencies that can undermine your effectiveness: Do you need to be right? Or liked? Or admired? Or unique? Or knowledgeable? Or cautious? Or fun? Or in charge? Or calm at all times? What if your coachee keeps asking for a simple way forward and you’re think your job it to transform their whole life?
Or maybe your supervisor-coach will just champion you and help you to become clear that you’ really are on the right track.
In addition to additional coach-specific training, Module III includes ten hours of group coaching supervision.
If you are a member of the SeattleCoach community, sessions with Patty for either coaching supervision or individual mentor coaching are offered at a discount.
Click here to demystify the ICF credentialing/renewal requirements.