Do you seek alternative ways to strengthen your skillset and who you are being as coach?
Have you ever experienced the power and benefits of coaching supervision?
Are you aware coaching supervision also provides certified coaches with CEU's (Continuing Education Units)?

Coaching supervision is gaining momentum in the industry and reported to be one of the best ways to support ourselves as coaches, our practice and our clients. There is still a lot of misunderstanding as to what it is, how it works and how it differs to mentoring, coaching and training. The ICF recognises it's importance by providing coaches who undertake supervision up to 10 CEU's.

The ICF defines coaching supervision as a collaborative learning practice to continually build the capacity of the coach (supervisee) through reflective dialogue with a trained supervisor to create a rich and broad opportunity for professional support and development. 

Supervision is a powerful process whereby the supervisee brings their challenges, opportunities and successes to engage and contract with a supervisor to support the coach's awareness and understanding. It provides space for the supervisee to slow down and move into their unconscious mind, heart and body to create new awareness in support of their learning and future choices, which in turns sets them up to be the best version of themselves.
 
Also, like coaching, supervision can also take place in a group setting. This means a group of coaching professionals - supported by a supervisor - come together with their challenges and opportunities in a reflective, psychologically safe space to assist in the development of everyone involved including the supervisor. Connections are made between all participants and the learning for individuals and the group can take place on many levels and from numerous different powerful points of view.

Coach supervision differs from coach mentoring, which is an essential part of the ICF credentialing process for coaches. Mentoring is typically in the form of receiving feedback from an expert coach in relation to the core competencies of coaching. Supervision, however, is a much more collaborative partnership between supervisor and supervisee, with both parties being responsible for creating the space for curiosity and refection in creative ways to enable the growth and development of the coach.  

In supervision, a supervisor will also bring in a lot more of what they are sensing, feeling and intuiting to support the supervisee to experience different perspectives and understand their development opportunities. For example, a supervisor might share with the coach what they are feeling, picturing, emoting or sensing inside themselves. This could be tension in their body, or a metaphor or a thought or a word that comes to mind, or perhaps an emotion they might be experiencing. By the supervisor offering a sense, experience, intuition or emotion to the supervisee, it supports the coach to understand their opportunity and challenge in an empowering different way. 

Coaching Supervision usually encompasses the following three aspects:

1. Normative: ensuring the coach is adhering to professional standards, ethics, and ensuring the quality of coaching skills.
2. Formative: working on the coach's personal development - the kind of coach they are, and who they might be evolving into.
3. Supportive: providing a coach the time to reflect and restore their energy and be with another experienced coach to spark ideas in dealing with the challenges and opportunities that come with the profession.

Supervision is highly recommended by the ICF and those coaches who are serious about their profession due to the numerous benefits, including:

• An opportunity to go back to the foundations of coaching, and deepen and strengthen their skill set even more
• Providing a safe, non judgmental courageous space where a coach can bring any questions, opportunities or challenges they might have experienced in their coaching practice and make time to reflect and learn
• Gaining an objective view from an experienced supervisor in relation to their situations and look at alternatives and come up with new insights
• A chance to get more clarity and new awareness about who they are as a coach and who they want to be going forward

In short, supervision supports coaches to deeply reflect on  their practice and builds an understanding of who they are and who they want to be to positively impact their clients: to bring out their best. Often referred to as 'Super-Vision' - because it creates empowering new perspectives for the supervisee in relation to past experiences - provides opportunities to learn and grow and is a safe place to go when the coach is experiencing challenges. 

Lynn Harrison, ICF certified wisely says, “As coaches we put out so much emotionally and other energy to be the best we can be for our clients. And so to have someone you can sit down with and receive support is encouraging; just being listened to and being willing to receive some valuable, challenging, but also supportive questions.”

She goes on to suggest, “I think there's such a need to have that time and space in our lives as coaches as we want to be good coaches for others. We need to have our own support now as well.”

So if you:

• would like to sharpen and fine-tune your coaching skills in a safe, supportive environment
• believe you have more to learn from your successful or not so successful sessions, or
• are feeling demotivated about coaching or 'drained' from coaching, or
• believe you are not as effective as you know you could be, or
• believe you are noticing potential ethical issues, or
• would like to identify your own 'blind spots' in your coaching practice, or
• are experiencing a dilemma or confusion in relation to your coaching

then we, along with other professional bodies such as the ICF, encourage you to consider coaching supervision from a trained supervisor to support you to be the best professional coach you can be.
 
Be empowered.

 

To listen to Jeanine Bailey, Director of Empower World and Lynn Harrison discuss the empowering benefits of coaching supervision, including their own experiences with the process, listen to the Empower World Coaching and Leadership Podcast, Episode 120 here

Episode-120 can be found here: 
Direct Link: http://bit.ly/2V4r56u
‪#stitcher: http://bit.ly/podcast-episode-120
#itunes: http://bit.ly/EW-Podcast-iTune