At CSA we know that self awareness is one of the keystones of confident, effective intervention.
Supervision explores, informs and supports in the following key areas:
establishing the supervisory contract
what goes on between the coach and the client
what's really going on in the client
what goes on inside the coach as he or she coaches
Coaching Psychology - using Gestalt, Transactional Analysis, Psychodynamic and Transpersonal insights and tools.
developing awareness of the total field of the coaching eg. the organisation and its effect on the coach.
developing skills, knowledge base and range of interventions
building the internal supervisor
enhancing EQ for both coach and client
creating awareness and knowledge of psychodynamic underpinnings which affect coaching.
Here are some of the scenarios that coaches have brought to supervision:
1.Coachee - high achiever, driven, asking coach to increase performance;coach senses that coachee is heading for a crash, but does not know what is really going on. Insights from CSA tools makes huge shift in perception for the coach and the work is back on track.
2.Coach is caught between pressure from employer and coachee's situation. Coachee genuinely unable to progress. What does coach do? Time to reflect away from the pressure of the situation, allows coach to find new ways forward for the next session.
3.Coach wants to learn much more about the psychology underpinning client issues, and to be able to recognise what is going on in the dynamic between coach and coachee in the sessions. Supervision brings increased knowledge and understanding, leading to growing competence for the coach.
4.Coachee suddenly presents unexpected personal material. Coach wants to be more confident and skilled in this area and needs support and information quickly.
5. Coach is aware that s/he wants to refresh skills and polish the more subtle aspects of coaching, and calls the supervisor for an in-depth review of her work.
6.Coach unsure if coachee situation requires counselling or coaching. Uses supervision to reflect on all aspects of this dilemma and whether or not supervision can support the coach to stick with the coachee and thus increase their coaching range over time.
7.Coachees get angry! Coach quickly needs to find out how to work with this, and other strong emotions, without getting overwhelmed.
8. Coach's personal and professional development is increasing as is their sense of the 'Bigger Picture' and the coach wants to work more deeply with coachees. Coach uses supervision to explore this and to confirm new insights.
9. Coach rarely acts on intuitive hunches that occur in sessions - hunches which, with hindsight , were accurate and would have moved the coaching forward. With careful nuturing of intuition and the Internal Supervisor in supervision, the coach uses intuition more frequently and learns to access the information of the body/mind as it emerges in coaching sessions.
10. Coach wants to develop the use of Image Work in coaching. Through supervision of specific exchanges in coaching sessions and teaching about the range of Image Work and about Guided Imagery, coach gains much greater competence and effectiveness.
11. Coach is unaware how the politics/culture of the organisation is affecting the coaching. In conversation with the supervisor, coach becomes much more knowledgeable about the system in which they are operating and can understand and execute their role more effectively.
Supervision allows me to recognise and detach from my own personal emotional responses to some of my client issues. I receive the professional care and support I hope I offer my clients - it allows me to be a better coach, it allows me to be heard so that I can hear my clients. It allows me to be the professional I want to be. Susan Ingram, Full Potential Group
Four Essential Elements
1.Quality control -ensuring I stay on track, manage the relationship effectively and support the client appropriately.
2.Further my development, offering alternative frameworks, techniques and strategies to assist me.
3.It helps me to recognise my 'blind spots' - ensuring I understand the client and the dynamics of the relationship.
4.Safety - supervision is essential and invaluable in keeping me and the client safe in our working relationship. Kerry Ellis
Supervision and Reflectiveness
Supervision needs to be clearly focussed on the real nature of practical coaching and mentoring. Reflectiveness results in mindful work where we constantly consider what to do, why we do it and examine it to see how we can do it better. Supervision is a forum for reflecting on work in the presence of another or others who facilitate that process. Dr Mike Carroll
Understanding Others
We understand another person in the same way as we understand, or seek to understand ourselves. What we do not understand in ourselves, we do not understand in the other person. CG Jung.
'Who we are is how we coach' Edna Murdoch
to be more confident and skilled in this area and needs support and information quickly.