Coach supervision adds ‘gravitas and professionalism’, says OCM’s Long
Internal supervisors have a vital role to play in building coaching culture and in role-modelling the characteristics of a learning organisation.
This was one of the key messages
from Katherine Long’s session on “good-enough” supervision in an organisational context. Long shared learning from her research, and from the OCM’s pilot ‘Coach as Supervisor’ programme, which has been submitted for accreditation with the EMCC. The pilot group consisted of
11 lead coaches from five organisations.
Long, director of qualifications at the OCM, said internal coach supervision was a “sensible mechanism for managing the organisation’s investment in coaching”.
It also helps to engage volunteer coaches, adds “gravitas and professionalism to internal coaching activity”, develops more strategic coaching activity, and enhances the coaching skills of internal supervisors. She also said: “It provides a caretaker/stewardship function, which I think is missing from one-to-one coaching.”
The 100-hour programme was delivered over six months via a blended learning approach, with a mix of workshops, reading, individual supervision from a course supervisor, group phone calls and supervision of at least three internal coaches.
Being part of the same system, as well as insufficient time, were among the barriers to internal coach supervision, while ease of access to internal
coaches was one of the enablers.
In addition to the anticipated benefits such as offering the next step in coaching development for a senior internal coach, some unexpected benefits emerged.
These included:
Immense value from sharing experiences with like-minded others
Stronger internal coach voice in the coaching profession and in supervision
Re-orientation of coaching direction for organisation, coach pool and individual
Peer support and personal supervision during significant change at work
Greater integration of coaching into current business priorities
Coaching at work, volume 8, issue 1