Guide to Supervision Ep 1
Guide to Supervision Episode 1
Published: 23 Oct 2024
Podcast by Judith Barton (published on Linkedin)
Hello and welcome. We’ve been talking an awful lot around supervision and one of the sort of, well not one, probably the hottest topic on supervision is how much supervision do I need, how many hours and when. So this is a really tough question because I would say it depends and people don’t like that, it depends, they want me to give people a definitive answer.
So I’m going to give it a go, I’m going to try…. Now lots of people have different views on this and I would say there’s a number of criteria that you need to consider when you are thinking about the number of hours that you need to be coaching and then to support you through supervision. And then I’m going to flip it because I’m going to raise some questions that I’d like you to think about in order to shape your supervision investment if you like.
Well obviously the first criteria is how many coaching hours do you actually do? When are those, when is the coaching hours? Is it sort of all in a week? So do you do so many hours a month or every quarter? How does that span out and what else in your life are you doing? The other criteria I would say is what sort of reflector are you? So I personally do a lot of thinking whilst I’m walking. I like to journal. I’m a very keen follower of the Morning Pages by Julia Cameron.
I am really thinking about and I ponder about how a session has gone and planned for a next session. So there’s sort of an ecosystem of supervision that you bring to supervision and think about the number of hours you do. There’s also in these criteria – where are you in your practice? Have you just recently qualified? Are you an experienced coach? Have you not coached for quite a few years but you qualified and so on? Where are you on that? And again a phrase being used is maturity of you as the coach which we will speak about later.
What type of coaching are you focused on would be another criteria? Is it all about exiting organisations? Is it about performance? Is it about well-being? Is it about career? And all of those may have different inputs depending in terms of supervision and the number of hours. Some would argue that if you’re working in an emotional field context a lot of the time that may well need more hours than if you’re much more about a task driven actions type coaching. So think about that.
Also think about what difference are you making as a coach? And that I would say relates to the client feedback. So if your client is feeding back to you and there are some challenges for you then you’re going to need support and more. So I would suggest that you think about the number of hours that you’re coaching and how you’re going to invest in the supervision.
So if you’re coaching sort of 10 plus hours a week you’ve probably got a very hectic practice. You’re probably very very busy and if you follow my rule of thumb that for every 10 hours or every one hour you’re coached you need another hour to prepare and reflect. Then I would say you should be thinking about supervision every four weeks.
And you might say oh my goodness that’s a lot of supervision. But think about the volume of coaching. How many people are you impacting or potentially impacting through your coaching? And that could be fabulously great results, performance, shining from the stars or vice versa.
You are waning in your practice and you need to be supported. And remember I refer to supervision as support, stretch and sustenance. So that’s the purpose.
If you’re coaching more than 10 hours a week then I think personally you should be investing in that supervision and thinking about that within your four week period. If you’re doing something in the region of 5 to 10 hours a week then again I would be pushing that but only to five or six weeks. Every five or six weeks for supervision.
Because remember I keep emphasising this is about you being the best you can be. That’s what clients are paying for. And whether they’re paying with an invoice or they’re paying for time or they’re paying through the commitment.
That is all about resource of energy. So that’s what you’re doing and you are trying to build your brand I would imagine. Whether you’re internal or freelance you’re building that.
So this is about performance. So just to recap 10 hours or more I would be saying once every four weeks and build that into your time. If you’re doing five to ten hours I would push it but not very much.
Five to six weeks in there. And if you’re doing less than that maybe once every eight weeks. Or if you’re doing very very limited coaching so one or two hours a month then once a quarter.
Because I said I would flip it for you but I’m going to ask the question. If you’re coaching very little then does that mean more or less supervision? Where are you? What do you need? If you stop doing something then we often need more effort to do it again and practice. Because it is about supporting you.
If you’ve been exiting, you’ve exited coaching because life has taken you in a different direction. You’ve been off away due to health or due to maternity leave or a project that’s taking you somewhere else in your life. Then that needs you to be supported to get back into the profession to return.
So I often advocate what I call return as coaching and return as supervision. So think about that. So just to recap and be really clear.
Over 10 hours I think we’re talking every four weeks. Five to ten hours push it to five six weeks. Any less than that I think if it’s round you’re heading to the to north of to five in hours then you should be thinking about every say two months.
If it’s less than that once a quarter and if you need to if you’re returning into coaching that’s an essential part and really think about what do I need to get back. Remember supervision is your nutrition to build your sustainable practice. Thank you.
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