Super-Vision: Reflective Learning Partnership
Super-Vision : what I offer you
I became a supervisor for several reasons. Firstly, my own experiences of marvellous support and reflective learning as a coach supervisee. As a trainer of coaches, I came to realise that the real development of the coach starts at the end of coaching training once the coach starts to practice on their own, and that supervision is a critical support for that journey. Becoming a supervisor has provided me with important professional and personal development well beyond my coaching. Supervision has given me the space to reflect deeply on my work and on who I am as I work. For a long time based on my own experience, I advocated that coaches need the external independent support that supervision provides, and so it felt very important to learn what is behind the supervision curtain and get myself trained. I love supporting individuals and groups to pause to reflect on their work, their learning, and their awareness of self. Having trained and worked as a scientist for many years, I am now very conscious of how important letting go of knowing and the ego associated with knowing are for deep reflection and emergent learning.
I supervise individuals and groups and co-supervise groups with a fellow CSA supervisor. My supervision training was with CSA in 2015/16 on UK11 and I have been a UK faculty member since UK13. I have previously been a tutor and practical assessor on the program.
How I supervise
Prior to finding coaching I worked in pharmaceutical R&D, as a scientist and then as a leader. The scientific training and leadership experiences from my corporate life both inform my supervision and coaching. I have an eclectic style of supervision, with many influences, including the Full Spectrum Model, transactional analysis, gestalt, psychosynthesis, transpersonal, embodiment, representational mapping, systems and constellations.
I combine these influences with a capacity to really listen to the person and their words, to be curious, to be non-judgemental and supportive while offering creative constructive observation and feedback. This, leavened with a bit of humour and a light touch, is a taste of how I supervise.
I believe that supervision is primarily a relationship in which co-creating a safe space and being truly present are the foundations for deep reflection growth and co-learning to happen. We will co-create how to work together to best serve your learning and your supervision practice. Clients tell me that they feel a sense of safety in which they are able to bring more of themselves.
When I sit and think about what is important to me in my work as a supervisor, I experience a warmth in my chest and a sensation of expansion and connection with the world. I feel more alive and more resourced and OK with not knowing the answer. From here I can embrace my vulnerability and know that it does not run the show!
About Super-Vision
I am convinced about the value of Super-Vision for Professionals who work through relationship with others.
I have also noticed that, for some, the name - Supervision - creates a misleading impression associated with oversight and judgement and being told what to do. For this work, I prefer the term "Super-Vision" in the sense of multiple views or lenses to explore, reflect and learn from our work; a "Reflective Learning Partnership" (which is a bit of a mouthful, so I'll use Super-Vision!). For me Super-Vision conveys better the core of partnering to reflect on your work experiences, thoughts, reaction and actions through a variety of different lenses, each of which offers a different perspective. Super-Vision is a super power that we as professional coaches need to develop, so that we are more aware of what we are doing, what we are drawn into by our clients and their organisations and how we are entangled by the work and relationships in unhelpful, even unhealthy ways. The best way to develop this is in reflective partnership with a trained and experienced supervisior. This Super-Vision superpower is of value to other professionals, not just coaches, who work through relationship with others. Obvious examples are HR professionals, Leaders, Teachers, Entrepreneurs, i.e. professions where the complexity of multiple relationships, holding confidences, and ambiguity and uncertainty are in play.
Super-Vision has an important and yet often under-appreciated role in supporting the development, success, professionalism and wellbeing of all professionals including coaches.
A metaphor for Super-Vision
Supervision is like the Supervisior being invited to take a walk with the Supervisee around their professional garden; noticing and reflecting on what our attention is drawn to. For example; noticing the pace at which we are walking, noticing what we are walking towards, what we are skirting round, which areas in the garden are well tended, which flower beds are being prepared, and what areas are still wild and unattended. Which paths do you routinely, perhaps by default walk along? What are you missing by staying with this path? What is the view beyond the garden? What is happening out there? How are the seasons affecting your garden and its suroundings? What attracts you to particular plants or flowers? Who and what do you welcome ito your garden, and who not so much?
This partnership in noticing, reflecting and encouraging and allowing emergence is the essence of Super-Vision.
