Guide to Supervision Ep 2

Guide to Supervision Episode2

Published: 12 Nov 2024

Podcast by Judith Barton (published on Linkedin)

Link: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/judithbarton_guidetosupervision-mythoughts-coachsupervisor-activity-7251883259255562240-z7iy?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAABk4M4B51c9wk3aMgr3quOos6zE2tYy7Qo

Hi everyone, it’s great to be back with you and talking today about a topic that is probably the number one question when coaches want to sort of get into the detail of supervision and that’s how much supervision should I have, what’s the number of hours, what’s the frequency and it raises a lot of hmm for me, it raises a lot of depends and it really does depend and you have to think about what you’re trying to do as a coach and that I would imagine and I would hope and I assume that you want to be the best coach you could possibly be. Remember we work in an isolated profession and so your supervision is your scaffolding, it is your sustenance and that’s my working definition, it provides support, stretch and sustenance to you as the coach. So I just want to talk about a range of criteria if you like for you to use to think about how do I judge this, when do I make my investment and I will be bold and give you some guidelines on hours as well so you know if that’s what you want to get to we’ll get there very quickly.

So question for me, how much coaching are you currently doing, what type of coaching are you doing, is it task sort of driven, action orientated in terms of a particular task, do this agreement of task, is it organisational and cultural and it takes longer and it’s more complex and we often refer to this in terms of topics about well where are we as the maturity of a coach and I will talk about that in future episodes. There’s also the focus of your coaching is it around performance, is it around well-being, is it very emotional, is it around career and it might well be a mix but some may naturally need for you more supervision than another depending on maybe your skill set, your place. The third one is well what else are you doing, so in your reflections are you also thinking about how you take that on board so do you journal, do you do your morning pages as I do which is Julia Cameron’s morning pages, do you really take time to ponder and think about your practice because you may need to be your supervisor of self and then take all of that learning to supervision which will again will alter the sort of potentially the number of hours.

Importantly is the client achieving their goals? Is the feedback from the client helping you learn?  Are you taking that to supervision so if the client is getting what they want can you sustain that over time and do you and I would say you need supervision to do that so these are things you need to think about. I will flip this shortly and ask you to think about other parts of this criteria to really get a grip of your coaching. If you’re receiving client feedback and your reflections then you will have that to take in and if you’re therefore coaching a great deal then you will need more supervision.

Now just to actually give you some numbers if you’re coaching sort of 10 hours a week and remember my view is that 10 hours for every one hour you need an hour to minimum to cover your preparation and your reflection so that’s 20 hours a week then you should be thinking around investing supervision every four weeks within a four-week block. Yep so every four weeks. If you’re coaching between five and ten hours I would say well you can push it but only a little so that’s between five and six weeks for you to invest in supervision.

Remember this is about you. If you’re coaching less than that and it’s under five and maybe let’s say it’s two to five something like that then I would be saying well let’s have a look at every eight weeks every two months and if you’re if you’re doing a minimum amount then you really do need to make sure that you are accessing supervision once a quarter. Now the type of supervision again will be probably dependent on a number of things such as budget, the particular needs and that ties into the sort of technical stuff also the complexity and we’re back to maturity and what do you need but I personally benefit greatly from the one-to-one supervision and I can augment that through group supervision and peer supervision.

I did say I would flip it and the flipping is if you haven’t coached for some time you’ve been away from coaching which may well be through a different project coming up, illness, maternity, you’ve been traveling so on and so forth then you do need to think about the readiness to coach to get back into coaching and that for me would be an essential component. Are you fitness? Are you fit to practice? Are you ready to go back? And you might say that’s a refresher but it would be very wise to think about entering back into the profession through supervision. Remember supervision is there to support, scaffold and build your practice and if you would like to build and grow a sustainable revenue stream and assist through a sustainable practice and supervision has to be your key priority.

So just think about that and how you’re going to weave that in to your business plan but enjoy supervision and grow your coaching. Thank you.

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Judith Barton, Founder and Director of Coaching & Mentoring at British School of Coaching. Judith works with leaders and senior executives in the UK and internationally. She shares her wealth of knowledge and experience in a practical and innovative way through her Linkedin podcasts, which is a go to resource for coaches, mentors and supervisors.