Why Every Coach needs Supervision

The Coaching Crowd® Podcast with Jo Wheatley & Zoe Hawkins

Jo Wheatley and Zoe Hawkins discuss the essential role that coaching supervision plays in a professional coach's career. They move beyond th

Key takeaways

• Accreditation bodies like EMCC and the Association for Coaching require regular engagement in coaching supervision.
• The ICF has embraced supervision hours by allowing them to count towards CPD requirements.
• Supervision serves three primary functions: normative, formative, and restorative.
• The 'normative' function helps coaches navigate complex ethical dilemmas and maintain professional standards.
• The 'formative' function supports the development of a coach's unique approach and reflective practice skills.

Main topics

• Coaching Supervision
• Professional Accreditation
• Ethical Decision-Making

Notable quotes

Supervision is like it's a support structure.

Conclusion

The episode demonstrates that supervision is not merely a compliance t

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:02) The Coaching Crowd podcast is for compassionate, courageous leaders, HR professionals and high achievers. Speaker 2 (0:09) People who are passionate about helping others to find alignment in their lives through coaching and who are thinking of training and developing as a coach. Speaker 1 (0:21) Hello and welcome to the Coaching Crowd podcast with me, Jo Wheatley, and my friend and colleague, Zoe Hawkins. Hi, Speaker 2 (0:27) everybody. Good to be back. And this week, we're here with another episode centered around supervision, but this time talking about why every coach needs supervision. And we're going to share with you probably some of the obvious reasons, but maybe some of the subtle things that maybe you've not considered as a coach before around why supervision could be really useful for you. So important, but also useful. And I think those are two distinct differences when you're considering supervision as a coach. So if you're thinking of training to be a coach, I think it's really useful to know how supervision supports you and why it supports you. And of course, if you are a coach, it helps you to tune into what could be useful for you here, what's available for you and possible for you as you start leaning into the supervisory space. I Speaker 1 (1:14) think an important place to start is that If you're an accredited coach or you're wanting to be an accredited coach, then the EMCC and the Association for Coaching require you to have and engage in regular coaching supervision. And the ICF have also more formally and more recently embraced that too, enabling coaching supervision hours to count towards the CPD hours. We might come back to that, but if we move beyond that, as you're training and developing as a coach, you're learning. coaching models, you're developing your confidence, you are building up your coaching hours. But it's really important to have humility within that, to recognize that we have our own stuff going on. We're human beings. We too are a work in progress. And in every coaching conversation, if certainly if you're, you know, in a one-to-one scenario, you're two different human beings with different values, different belief systems. different identities coming together into a space whilst also living your own life. And we need to be really careful and aware of what we're bringing in to coaching spaces, what our blind spots are. So we get curious then about why did I react like that? I wonder with that client today, why did I? feel that strong reaction, didn't feel like it was about them, that felt like that was something to do with me and my own story and my own experiences. Why am I feeling stuck with this client, not other clients but this one? What is it about this particular client or the dynamic between us or why am I still thinking about this client tonight after the session? I don't normally do that, it's not, that's not what I do but I notice I'm doing that with this particular client. Am I really serving this client? Am I serving this client as a coach in the best way that I can? There's a nagging doubt in my mind about that. Can't put my finger on what it is about this client, but that question is active within me. Those are just some of the questions that coaches have, you know, going around in their mind with different clients at different times. Doesn't mean we're doing anything wrong, but they're important indicators for us and a space with another person who is a you know, qualified, accredited coach, accredited supervisor that can hold a space to help us do that. Enables us to get closure on some of these open tabs, you know, that we have can help us to notice patterns. They can give pointers to our own professional or personal development that's going to support us to sustain ourselves in this work and do the best work that we can. And I think what you're starting to touch Speaker 2 (3:57) on there, Jo, is like helping fatigue, you know, so in a role such as a coach. and in other helping professions as well. Supervision is a core part of your well-being strategy. It's there to ensure that you can continue to show up with the same levels of energy for each and every client so that you're able to attend to their goals, their needs, their outcomes without feeling fatigued yourself. So I see supervision as like it's a support structure. I think coaching is a very unusual profession in that it's you and it's your client. Nobody else is coming into those conversations or very rarely anyway. And there's nobody else who gets to witness those because of the nature of confidentiality. And so you can have a lot of questions in your mind. Did I do a good job there? Did I handle that in the best possible way? So having a supervisor is where you can go to help to explore that. And that I think is resourcing for you. So you