Exploring the theme of coaching supervision has caused me to reflect on my personal journey of supervising and being supervised.

I’m not talking here about the manager/employee relationship but supervision as a learning and personal reflection process. In an early experience of supervision during my days as a Youth Worker, I naively asked a trusted colleague to be my supervisor. As a first experience, I had no idea what to expect, or how the process would be of benefit – it simply seemed like a good idea at the time.

I chose this person because of my perception that I could talk through issues, get some feedback and suggestions and most importantly hear the challenges that have shaped and molded me ever since. This experience of supervision was profound, and like many other things in my life at that time set me on a huge learning curve, either things coming full circle or moving back to the future.

This experience of supervision taught me two valuable lessons. First, that I needed to find a way of talking through challenging situations that were taking place as part of my role as a Youth Worker and most importantly that I wasn’t alone.

Fast forward to 2012, when as part of my Masters Degree in business coaching, I chose to undertake a small project focusing on the experience of recent Australian coaching graduates in relation to supervision. While I have yet to publish this research, it is fair to say that coaches are ambivalent towards supervision, in part due to cost and because like coaching, supervision in coaching is still in its emergence.

Prior to completing my Masters Degree I had completed a Cert IV in Life and Business Coaching, and realised quite quickly that coaching as part of my DNA. It felt to me like I was coming home and that coaching was what I really wanted to focus on. These training programs have provided many opportunities for informal supervision and while I thought I had ‘been there, done that’, my focus on supervision was only just beginning=

My key research interest and focus of my PhD program is to understand not only the current experience of business coaches in relation to supervision but to identify what is different from other supervision practices and what models and approaches are appropriate on this context.

Coaching supervision, like business and executive coaching is in my view a multi-disciplinary process. A deep life experience supported with continuing education in a wide variety of fields is essential to be an effective practitioner. Ultimately reflection and self awareness are key attributes of coaching and coaching supervision and for me its all about the ‘aha’ moments as the following diagram illustrates.

Self awareness and transformation in coaching practice is achieved through the mirror of self-reflection – a key element of the supervision process.

There remains much to learn in understanding the needs of coaches in relation to supervision. We need to be cognisant of the learning that has come from other disciplines, but we also need to be courageous in finding new models, theories and practice that meeting the needs of coaches and the emerging profession.=

That is my goal and quest over the coming years.