Why every coach needs supervision

One of the things I say over and over again in Cultivating Coachability, available now to pre-order, is to take your questions, wonderings and objections to supervision.

You may well get sick of me saying, “Take this to supervision if you are unsure of yourself” or words to that effect, but it’s the best place to talk confidentially about the things that come up for you as you read.

That’s the space where you can go deep into anything that is getting in the way of you being the best coach you can be for those with whom you work.

Do you have supervision already?

If so, brilliant – you already have a place to take anything that comes up for you from the book.  Your supervisor may or may not agree with my thoughts – that’s ok, you still have a mind of your own to decide what is right for you, given your personality, your context, your clients, and your coaching.

If you don’t already invest in supervision, what’s stopping you?

There are alternatives to 1-1 supervision…

I get it, when you are starting out building a business, living expenses take precedence over “splashing out” on supervision.  But there are ways and means of getting low-cost supervision.  Group supervision is normally at a lower price point per hour than 1-1s.  So that may be a place to look.  And honestly, you should be factoring supervision into the cost of doing business.

Or if you are an internal coach, you may be expecting your company to pay for supervision.  Yep, they should, as internal coaches have very particular ethical dilemmas that need talking through.  I must admit that I did not have supervision when I was internal and I had a load of blind spots that hurt me and hurt the people I coached.  In retrospect, I wish I had spent some of my salary on coaching supervision.

You could look for peer supervision.  It’s not quite the same, especially if those peers are at the same experience level as you.  None of you know what you don’t know.  But I did work with two other coaches outside of my organisation and we supported each other tremendously, through supervisory types of conversations and through triad practice with feedback to each other.  I wouldn’t be where I am today without them.  Thank you Diane Clutterbuck and Bernadette Cass if you are reading this.

Resources

But maybe you just don’t know what supervision is nor how to make the most of it.  In this case, here are a couple of resources for you:

1. The difference between mentor coaching and coaching supervision 
2. Lifting the Lid on Coaching Supervision podcast (approaching 125 episodes), hosted by yours truly and Steve Ridgley. We talk about the huge variety of issues that people bring to supervision and how to make the most of it.

If you have been thinking about investing for a while, and know that you want a place to talk about your coaching, ethical dilemmas, your energy levels and anything else where the personal is intruding on the professional, let’s talk.

I have new supervision groups starting throughout the year (click here for all the details) and I’ll be starting one in 2025 that will be specifically focused on questions around coaching readiness and coachability.  It’ll be a blend of supervision and workshopping your processes and peer support and book club, all rolled into one.

You can express your interest by emailing here and I’ll set up a call when I have enough interest.