Supervision for New Coaches

The new coach’s development, emerging coaching style and confidence in their practice are greatly enhanced through investing in supervision of their professional practice. Supervision also evidences for clients, a commitment to professionalism in a growing and competitive field. I understand the specific learning challenges and needs of emerging coaches; from initial practise to practice development and my approach is based on my insights from supervising many new coaches and my own experience of what worked for me in the supervision I had myself when I was a new coach. Three key areas which I believe has the greatest impact on the learning and development of the new coach:

Knowing Self – increasing self-awareness provides a check for new coaches to avoid projecting their own thoughts, opinions and limiting beliefs on their client and identifying where these, self-talk and emotional triggers may be holding them back;
Exploring Self – supporting new coaches from early on in their career to work through their own reflections creates greater resolution and learning and builds early confidence in their own judgement and insight;
Being Self – encouraging new coaches to be congruent in their own coaching approach and style creates coaching presence and authenticity.

Supervision For Student Coaches: your learning and personal development

Supporting the personal developmental of the coach whilst supporting the learning development of the student coach.

For those with little coaching experience with low-fee/unpaid practice clients where you are learning to develop your coaching skills in action and implementing your training whilst studying on any coaching related course

My nurturing supervision approach to working with student coaches is focused on the balance of catalytic and challenging prompts to learning, as well as reassurance and guidance;
My approach is collaborative and explorative of experiential and reflective learning in order to develop your individual practice away from a course lens and learning context;
I offer independent, confidential person-centred safe space where you can be truly honest and open in a way you can’t be within the formal learning environment; providing a sounding board for you to discuss your overall development as a coach and explore specific challenges. This has a high impact on learning;
I support you in finding a balance between practicing coaching approaches to meet a course’s requirements and what’s in best service of each client.

“The course teaches how you practice and pitfalls to avoid when it comes to using particular techniques – external supervision gives you a chance to really identify what is going on for you, and what you are taking in to sessions.” MSc Applied Positive Psychology & Coaching Psychology Student

Supervision For Emerging Practitioners: your personal and professional development

A bridge for the practicing coach to the professional coach.

For those who have completed their practice hours and are moving into developing their own practice after coaching qualification.

Supporting your professional and personal development and challenges as your practice grows. Encouraging you to develop clarity about your contribution to the coaching field and client experience.

Deepening your reflective and experiential learning in order for you to establish greater insight, self-awareness and professional mastery as a coach;
Ensuring the competency, quality and ethical management of individual client cases in service of you, your clients and the systems in which you operate;
A space to explore your growing integration of different approaches, models and theories alongside
Supporting you to developing your insight, boundaries and presence when working with clients;
A keen focus on the contracting process around client agreements and within individual sessions;
Maintaining the link between your own practice and the ethical and professional standards of the field.

Common Issues for New Coaches:

Supervision focusses on three very important elements: support for the coach, the coach’s learning and growth, and the development of the coach’s professional practice. Below we summarise common issues for new coaches:

Restorative

Seeking reassurance you are “doing it right” or “being the best coach you can be”;
A high degree of self-criticism/talk and pressure as you work towards your idea of how you think you “should be doing it”.

Personal & Professional Development

How to form your own identity and approach as a coach based on your individual strength, traits and personal offering; to show up as your own self in sessions, rather than hold onto ideas of being a ‘professional coach’ or using specific approaches;
To work through and identify your own triggers and emotions and how to manage these responses (the development of self awareness, boundaries and of parallel process.

Management & Quality

A need to discuss challenges in relationships with clients, and how to manage/address these directly in session;
A need to explore the boundary between what to bring in of yourself and what to bracket in service of the client and own emotional safeguarding;
A need to build confidence in sharing your own insights, observations and sense in session as a means to collaborate with clients;
A high concern with the balance between held space and directive energy;
Contracting for goal versus exploration coaching styles;
Confusion around boundary/modes/hats eg. coaching and counselling/mentoring modalities and bringing in your own expertise;
How to select approaches/models and avenues appropriately within coaching sessions;
Ethical concerns arising from individual scenarios.

I rarely end up talking about what I intended with Antonia…I end up talking about what’s important.

Veronica

Antonia placed me at the centre of the Supervision process by remaining curious and intuitive about how I work and what questions I use to elicit creative thinking opportunity. Antonia understood well that I work with other clients, offering therapeutic counselling (of which supervision is additional and separate) yet showed an ability to steer me into remaining whole in the supervision process. This was absolutely brilliant and very liberating for me. Antonia correctly picked up on my short and inappropriate description of a client which provided me with an opportunity to further reflect on my unconscious message and transference that I may be giving to my client. This was indeed evidence of her ability to be challenging and supportive at the same time. For me I will continue to reflect upon seeing myself as one person rather than creating unnecessary boundaries within myself and clients.

Helen

Antonia’s coaching supervision was extremely helpful because it was deep, intuitive, and interactive. She opened up new horizons through her questions at the same time she was there to gently encourage and support. Antonia certainly brought a new perspective with the way I was dealing with my clients and refined my questioning technique.

Kay

Antonia was willing to patiently listen to what might sometimes have been a ridiculous or round the houses story or train of thought until she got the point or what was behind the emotion. She was very gentle in her your approach which enabled me to open up fully rather than skirt around the thought. Antonia’s very helpful observation and sense of what was my stuff and what was my client’s stuff helped me to further understand how I work and what to look out for.

Marie

I gained insight into some aspects of my work that were fuzzy before. It was most useful to be able to get that clarity and overall was the most beneficial part of the supervision for me. Antonia was able to help me tease out what I actually wanted to be presenting as a package to clients. From my confusion I got clarity and an epiphany as to what I actually offer. That was massive.

Antonia strikes a really great balance between being supportive and challenging. I found her style and tone really enabled me to think with new perspective. She has a strong presence and intuition which coupled with powerful and sometimes challenging questioning inspired me to think clearly about the direction I was taking. She also brings a practical focus in terms of thinking about how you can best work with your clients, develop your own style and consider who you are as a coach. I found the coaching supervision to be most useful in terms of providing me with a strong sense of clarity. It enabled me to question assumptions I was making about where I should direct my focus in terms of building my future business. It helped me to think clearly about the kind of coach I wanted to be and the client bases I could work with. Antonia’s strong intuition and powerful questioning style provided me with the opportunity to understand and plan my practice in a way that felt realistic, manageable and inspired.

Michelle

I enjoyed and valued being challenged by Antonia. She was always respectful in the way she challenged me, and her approach was deeply insightful and helped me to grow and refine my skills as a coach. Antonia strongly encouraged self-reflection and this helped me to analyse how I was working with my clients and how I could improve. What was most helpful about supervision with Antonia was her focus on reviewing my approach and helping me to think exclusively about my clients and leaving my own ‘baggage’ at the door, i.e. when I took a specific line with a client, was this to help them arrive at their own conclusions, or was it influenced by my own experience. This helped me refine my questioning techniques, and in the case of one client in particular transformed our relationship.

Duncan

Antonia provides me with the space to reflect on my practice with occasional nudges which always require me to think more deeply. She offers a good level of challenge in a fabulously supportive way and I leave each session with far greater insight into my own thinking and practice. Antonia spends time in understanding the context in which I work which enables me to work at a deeper level. I have learnt that I have sometimes been so busy trying to do the right thing as a coach that I can become quite driven and solution focused almost rushing some sessions. She has helped me remind myself that I am human and that being present with my clients and responding from that place is often the most valuable part of any session and leads to greater self-knowledge. I am gaining much in the realms of who I am and want to be as a coach.

Amanda

For me, Antonia is about presence. She listens to details. She challenges details. She reflects them back. It feels like an extra brain is present to help understanding of what I’m putting out there. Antonia is not afraid to ask if there is doubt, lack of clarity or just blindness. Thank you for being there

Shirley

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