Coaching Supervision
For regular consultative support and development challenge
Supervision makes a major contribution to the development of highly skilled coaches. 83% of professional bodies and 88% of international organsations who use coaches regularly, demand coaching supervision, to promote ongoing professional and ethical practice, the enhance results of coaching, and the development of the coach, not just to gain qualification and accreditation.
100% of Coaches at all levels agreed that they are expected to have a supervisor and be in regular ongoing sessions together.
Welch and Clifford, March 2020, Coaching at Work Magazine.
Research has shown that taking the time to explore all aspects of coaching fully with a qualified supervisor leads to greater development and deepening of understanding, than the qualification programmes that form the foundation of practice. Which is why we have chosen to focus our work in this strong developmental area going forward.
If you are serious about becoming a great coach, you want a great supervisor alongside. From outset to successful close, we seek to understand your approach and context, give attention to your worldview, values and beliefs in your work with your client. You discover further hidden potential, alter less-helpful patterns of thinking and feeling that occur in your practice, discover resources and get equipped to deal with challenges and opportunities alike.
Lorenza, a globally accredited coach supervisor and experienced master executive coach offers:
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Individual coach supervision around your unique practice
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Group coach supervision facilitated in trio groups, to enrich learning.
Clients describe Lorenza's supervision as exceptional, transforming, gentle yet challenging. They report that they generate new clarity, confidence and proactive skill in their coaching and have really interesting conversations in the process.
Our purpose together is to:
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Provide regular consultative support for you as a internal or external coach with a caseload in an organisational context
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Discover more about how you can ensure best practice in your own coaching work
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Raise awareness of self in relation to aspects of different client relationships and support you in thinking through implications and actions
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Create a relationship where we share the highs, lows, responsibility, joy and honour of our work with clients
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Increase the value of the reflection work you do, about your clients and your approach
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Above all, we allow learning to emerge and seek ways to apply it and synthesise it into the fabric of your professional practice.
Functions of supervision:
There are four to cover through our conversations:
Developmental, Resourcing, Qualitative and Relational (also known as Systemic).
There are also Metathemes, derived from our experience of what is
developmentally fruitful to discuss: Ethics, Development, Sustainability,
Mutuality, and Reflective Choice. and beneath each of these are themes I might
offer you as areas for further reflection and discussion.
As you bring a case, or an aspect of your practice into supervision, we'll focus
more on one element, but over the course of time, all will be covered.
Consider the arc of time in coaching relationships, the reflection work you do and
the cases you bring to discuss. It's important to look at beginnings, middle sessions and endings.
Above all, we will adapt to work with what is current, emerging or even pressing.
Supervision Approach
Lorenza has a relational, co-constructive, developmental approach. She creates a safe and egalitarian space through presence and listening. She employs questions, tools, mapping, embodiment and information, as appropriate to your conversation. She has been an accredited supervisor since 2012, having qualified with the Coaching Supervision Academy. She is accredited with the Association for Coaching Supervisors, the CSA's International Centre for Reflective Practice for Supervision and with the Global Association for Coaching as a Master Executive Coach.
Lorenza will mine several perspectives for insights that enhance practice. The relational perspectives are loosely described by the pronouns I, You, We, They and It. We take the perspective inward and broaden it to the edges of peripheral attention and beyond. Lorenza brings an innovative edge, and makes thinking and learning exciting and then grounding it in something practical.
In real world networks, the relationships between you and your coachees, (and between them and others) will be mirrored in the microcosm of the supervision relationship.
Lorenza will lead you to explore, as relevant, the parallel processes in play.
In her role as Assessor with the Accreditation team at the Association for Coaching, Lorenza reads and thinks in depth about the different manifestations of coaching competences at all levels. She understands, recognises and can choose to use many different methodologies in her coaching.
Coaching is a broad church. Lorenza's interest in the function and merit of different approaches has led her to obtain training and certification in many approaches over her professional life. She has great skill in identifying your particular strengths to feedback, and areas to explore and develop. You'll find her curious and non-judgemental. Should you be preparing for accreditation, it is good to know you are in knowledgeable hands.
Are you willing to put in the hard-thinking to get the development and confidence in your practice it brings? Supervision makes that complex, reflective-work more joyful, more productive and accelerates the developmental process from other CPD work. It returns value by preparing you for the contact you have with your clients, improving interactions at all stages of the life-cycle.
In our research during 2019/2020 with the AC and AOCS, summary published in Coaching at Work magazine, we show that we are working with the big twin themes of value and developing enduring trust.
100% of coaches agreed that finding a supervisor you feel you can really trust is the most important aspect to being ready and willing to open up to developmental scrutiny, which we know can leave people feeling vulnerable. We are not here to judge, but to open up and enable your own enhanced and discerning judgement.
We found that new coaches like to find a supervisor who is of the same modality as them, initially. While experienced coaches find great value comes from conversations about contrasting experiences, where we can unpack the concepts and the coach's relationship with those concepts, attending to thoughts, feelings, resistance and flow.
The "perception barrier" of not having adequate time or money for supervision, which is held by two thirds of coaches who are not in regular supervision, vanishes in the face of value gained for those in our research who took up regular consultative support to deal with the complexity of the work with an accredited coaching supervisor. In discussion with two large groups of supervisors, the lack of understanding of the potential benefits is what allows this barrier to continue.
So where does value come from in coaching supervision? Our research showed that:
Initial value comes from:
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Time to think, safe from judgement
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Focus on the coach in their practice
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Addressing issues and situations arising in their practice
Later value arises from:
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Non-judgemental reflection space
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Deepening of the relationship
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Developmental areas uncovered
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Increased capacity to serve clients
Continuing with the same supervisor for more than a year led to value from:
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Deepening of trust in the relationship
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Addressing of patterns in challenges
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Growth of deeper client relationships
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Becoming known, respected and valued
The value of having a different or additional supervisor (experienced coaches reported having more than one):
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The contrasts in skills, experience and modalities
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Fresh perspective, different presence and focus
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New affirmation and challenge from a different angle.
With this knowledge, let’s move forward with even greater confidence toward valuable supervision and better practice for all coaches, and accreditation for as many as possible of those who prioritise the reputation of themselves and their profession above and beyond profit.
You've developed your skills and been awarded your qualification as a coach. As you embark to continue your journey, you will leave safe harbour as you provide passage for others' learning in whatever conditions you meet as you voyage together.
At some point, you're going to want an experienced supervisor alongside.
This is where the real development happens!
If not now, then when? We look forward to meeting you.