Reflection with accountability: why bother with coaching supervision?

I am still surprised and saddened to hear about the numbers of coaches who don’t engage in coaching supervision. There are of course many reasons for this, including “I am just starting my business and can’t justify the cost”; “I engage in coach mentoring so don’t need supervision”, and “I can’t see the purpose of it.” There is also another reason I have heard (albeit only once so far) and that is “surely I can use AI to do this for me”. This intrigued, and horrified me, because I was thinking to myself “why on earth would you want to undertake reflection with a computer rather than a human being?”
This led to me experimenting with AI and a supervision enquiry. The results generated some powerful, thought-provoking questions – probably better than I might ask myself as a supervisor. The questions did prompt me to reflect, but I didn’t answer all the questions and there was no one to challenge my responses. I also know that I did not take my reflections as deep as I would have if I had been in the presence of my coaching supervisor. It would have also been easy for me to slip into self-deception, avoidance and justification. Therefore, coaching supervision with another human soul provides a space for accountable reflection in service of our practice to ensure we are at our best and being ethical. Afterall, as Nancy Kline highlights with her Thinking Environment “we think best in the presence of another person, and when that person is giving us generative attention.” I believe it is essential and important that as coaches we do our best quality thinking in service of our practice, and if we aren’t doing this work what right do we have to expect our clients to do it?
Coaching supervision can hold us accountable on so many levels:
- It is a committed, dedicated space and time to reflect – by putting it in our diaries we have made a commitment to another person to show up and do the work.
- We cannot avoid questions, as our supervisor can hold the space and ensure we answer the question being posed.
- It supports us in taking our reflections to a deeper level because our supervisor can challenge our responses and notice other aspects to our responses e.g. the words and metaphors used, pace and tone of delivery, and body language. They can also observe if there is a pattern to the themes we bring and our responses over-time, which can support our development.
- It can challenge whether we are behaving ethically or not
Whilst I enjoy reflective practice and regularly journal, step back and pose myself questions, it is the time spent thinking with another human being in coaching supervision which keeps me accountable, ethical and focussed on deepening my practice. I know that this underpins how I show, which is why I have coaching supervision every month and sometimes twice a month if the group I attend is meeting.