Celebrating Coaching Supervision

I remember when I was first introduced to the concept of coaching supervision during my training and an instant fear spread through my body and panicky thoughts flooded my brain. These thoughts were all coming from the fear of being seen as not competent, not good enough and not making the grade – all based on my “not good enough driver” and a need to be seen as “competent.” That was before I even started to have nightmares on who the supervisor might be – I envisaged an expert assessor assessing my fitness to practice. I created an image of someone like my terrifying First Officer WRNS from my Naval Officer Training!

Looking back how absurd and ridiculous those feelings and thoughts were; but the title “supervisor” does conjure up feelings of being monitored, assessed and marked. However, I embraced the process and started work with a wonderfully supportive and compassionate supervisor, whose wisdom and perceptive questions enabled me to expand and deepen my awareness, explore options and thinking and resulted in me growing as a coach. There were challenging moments when I even faced into shame and embarrassment about a coaching session, whilst my supervisor held me, so I was able to take my reflections to a deeper level.

Since that point I have had other supervisors and as I look back over my reflections, I know that coaching supervision has been the most valuable and important investment in my growth as a coach and human being, my self-awareness has deepened, and my ethical maturity developed. It has been a place where I have resourced myself to manage and sustain my capacity to hold and contain my client’s work.

I now am also a coaching supervisor, and I have the privilege of journeying with other coaches, which also continues my own growth, because as Pema Chodron said “we work on ourselves in order to work with others; and we work with others in order to work on ourselves.” Therefore, a massive thank-you to all who give me the honour and joy of working with you.

Like Robin Shohet’s book I am completely “in love with supervision.” It is so very different from what I first imagined instead it is rich, deep, nourishing and challenging – a place where I can take my vulnerabilities, shadow, dreams, embarrassment and shame. It is a place of humanity, soul and wisdom from all parties involved; and importantly in this ‘always on’ world, a place of pause. As I discussed in a previous post it is about reflection with accountability, after all as Nancy Kline highlights ‘we think best in the presence of another person’. My research has also highlighted the importance of reflection to developing and deepening self-awareness. I cannot imagine not having this important space in my world, and I believe it would be of value to not just coaches, but also leaders. Come and join me in this space!