Coach! What if your client asks how you focus on your own learning and development?

As coaches we help our clients make sense of their reality and empower them to better ways of being and doing. But how do we ensure our own learning and development? Especially with respect to our work with our clients – in real time?

According to Carroll (2009), the heart of Supervision is the learning of the supervisee – the COACH! And the focus of the learning is the work of the coach with her/his client.

As a coach what do you learn in Supervision? Carroll states that it is anything to do with the coach’s work: ‘theory, skills, induction into a profession, professional savvy and wisdom, skills and competencies, self-awareness, ethical awareness and sensitivity, ability to use intuition and that array of knowledge, skills, attitudes, values, and mind-sets that go to make up the professional in whatever profession’.

A supervisor uses the following methods to facilitate the learning of the coach: ‘teaching, training, and instruction through to role-play, skills development, self-awareness, feedback, challenge, insight, parallel process, and sharing their own experience’.

Finally, the acid test of good Supervision is this:

• ‘What are you (the supervisee/coach) doing differently now that you were not doing before supervision?
• What have you learned from the past hour in supervision with me?
• What shifts have taken place in the supervisor room that have been transferred to your work?’

As successful coaches we owe it to our clients to invest in our own learning.

If you’d like to experience answers to the three questions above, connect with me (ajayglobalcoach@gmail.com) for more details. I’d be happy to help you experience a few supervision sessions at no cost!