In the second part of our special report on coaching supervision, we consider supervision and the needs of internal coach and the continuum of reflective practice … where does it start and stop?
Part 2: David Clutterbuck, Carol Whitaker and Michelle Lucas look at how and in what ways supervision differs for internal and external coaches
Anecdotal and assessment centre evidence suggests the average capability and impact of the internal coaching resource at least equals that of the average externally resourced coach.
And in Europe, at least, the European Mentoring & Coaching Council, Association for Professional Executive Coaching and Supervision and the Association for Coaching have taken the view that whether a coach is internal or external to an organisation is immaterial, in terms of whether they should participate in regular supervision.
They believe it’s essential for any coach working at a professional or semi-professional level to seek and receive support in thinking through how they approach their practice in general and how they work with specific clients.
In this article, we look at whether the supervision requirements of internal professional coaches differ from that of their external counterparts. If so, in what way. And how might other internal coaches benefit from supervision?
Similarities and differences
Unsurprisingly, in our conversations with internal and external coaches, we find a lot of similarity in perspective on supervision, particularly around:
Continuous skills development
Quality of reflection on practice
Recognition and management of ethical boundaries
Reassurance that they are ‘doing the right thing’
Maintaining direction in their personal growth as coaches
Integrating or better aligning who they are and what they do as a coach
The need to step out of the system and look in
Knowing limitations and when/where to refer a client on.
At the same time, there are a number of differences, resulting from the nature and level of connectedness between the coach and the organisation.
Internal coaches more often refer to the following issues:
Power distortions Even a very experienced, confident coach can be affected internally by ‘power distance’ when the client is more senior than they are.
Hofstede (1991) and others have explored the notion of power-distance within a cultural context and it can be argued that this exists at a micro level within organisations too. Simply knowing that there are risks in offending the client may reduce the level of challenge – though some coaches have reported that they are more aggressively challenging in these circumstances, because the client will not respect perceived weakness. The perceived risk may not be just personal. Where internal coaches are part of HR, there may be a general reputational risk to the function.
Knowing the organisation and its politics The internal coach can often better contextualise their clients’ issues, because of a greater understanding of the organisation and its culture.
However, this is a double-edged sword. Such shared knowledge can promote collusion between the coach and client or simply create a genuine blind spot as a result of shared connection to the organisation (D Birch & E de Haan, 2011).
Refusing a coaching assignment It is relatively easy for an external coach to turn down a coaching assignment when they feel the relationship isn’t right, or the client’s motivations are inappropriate. It is not so easy for the internal coach who has less choice over their client base. This can occasionally be particularly complex where, because of past connections or social contact, a dual relationship exists between potential coach and client, of which the organisation is unaware.
Boss-subordinate politics It can be more difficult for an internal coach to confront ‘political coaching’, for example, when a poor boss wants to deflect attention from their own deficiencies by focusing attention on ‘fixing’ a direct report, or when the covert intent of coaching is to edge someone out of the organisation.
Changing hats Many internal coaches have a day job connected to the HR or L&D function, where they are often seen as the technical expert. When coaching, they have to remember to leave this ‘style’ behind. This can be challenging when clients appeal to ‘the rescuer’ in them, or when they see the coach as a gatekeeper to closely guarded organisational information.
In a similar vein, the internal coach may have multiple relationships with their clients as a result of a shared history in the organisation or perhaps even formal and dual roles – both HR contact and coach. St John-Brooks (2010) has identified the ethical complexities that arise from this and sees external supervision as a key vehicle for coach support.
How to ‘not know’ In organisations people move roles and divisions all the time, and no matter how ‘clean’ an internal coach matching process might be, it’s possible for someone to end up with functional responsibility for a former client.
While as a professional coach they can attempt to ‘bracket’ their experience, they can’t ‘un-know’ what they learned in a separate and confidential setting.
This is a particular challenge for HR professionals who are internal coaches and responsible for calibrating talent management reviews across the organisation.
Human curiosity can challenge confidentiality As an internal coach, it is highly likely you will pass the line managers of your clients in the corridor. Despite being clear with contracting that the coaching relationship is protected by client confidentiality, the line manager’s natural curiosity will inevitably lead to the question, ‘How is the coaching going?’
It can be personally difficult to maintain a boundaried stance when the question comes from a good intent. If the client sees the coach talking to their line manager for any reason, will they believe confidentiality has been upheld?
Finally, line managers can often put the cat among the pigeons when the coach manages the request well by talking about process rather than content and the naïve manager then comments to the client that their coach has said they are getting on well! Inviting the coach to get sucked in again.
Timeframe As internal coaches often know their client over a longer period of time than external coaches, they may need to work harder to establish appropriate boundaries between work, coaching or friendship. At a practical level, it is sometimes possible for coaching sessions to be shorter in duration, say 20-30 minutes, whereas external coaches are often contracted, from a practical point of view, for 1-2 hours at a time.
Although this can mean clients receive more ‘just in time’ support, if overused it can breed a dependency (sometimes witnessed with coaches requesting ‘a chat over coffee’ long after the formal relationship has ended).
Finally, shorter sessions will tend to generate more transactional than transformational conversations unless the coach is particularly skilful.
Formalising the relationship Unlike their external counterparts where the ‘contractual’ nature of the relationship leads to an expectation to contract for the coaching at the start, these ‘starts’ and ‘ends’ can be less clear-cut for the internal coach.
Unless the organisation manages its internal coaching cadre as though it were an outsourced supplier, coaching relationships will have an emergent start and may never truly end. Contracting during this evolving coaching relationship is a different and potentially
more ambiguous activity than most external coaches will have to manage.
A simple glance at this list of differences demonstrates the need for support for internal coaches. As the coaching market matures and more organisations upskill their internal resources to create internal coaches, it’s important to remember that the investment doesn’t stop once employees have been ‘trained’.
As discussed, the complexity of the organisational landscapes in which coaching takes place can lead to a vast array of potential conflicts and tensions for the working relationships of those involved.
Reflective practice of some type is simply due diligence.
The nature of this reflective practice will depend on the maturity of the organisation and its budget.
However, one thing is for sure. If you are seeking to quality-assure the coaching conversations in your business, you cannot
short-change the quality of those who facilitate the reflective practice.
So that leads us to the question of what qualities might you look for in those who provide supervision in your organisation.
What to look for
Based on our experience we suggest the following are useful when working with internal coaches:
Combination of external supervision experience and understanding of complexities of internal coaching
Exposure to the systemic complexities of organisations including power, politics, risk management, commerciality, quality assurance, governance over policy and procedures
Experience of supporting clients working with challenges around boundary management, multiplicity of roles, inverted power base relationships
Professional supervision qualification and regular supervision for themselves
Resilience in order to deal with competing pressures, and the political sensitivity to surface issues while protecting relationships.
This is quite a list – and it’s hard to imagine in someone who does a non-coaching related day job as well. At some point even internal supervision experts will need an external sounding board.
However, without an integrated approach to reflective practice, organisations could unwittingly create an unmanaged risk in
the business.
David Clutterbuck: david@davidclutterbuckpartnership.com
Carol Whitaker: carol@whitaker-consulting.co.uk
Michelle Lucas: michelle@greenfieldsconsultancy.co.uk
References
D Birch and E de Haan, ‘Supervision for Consultants’, in Training Journal, January 2011
M Carroll and M C Gilbert, On Being a Supervisee: Creating Learning Partnerships, London: Vukani Publishing, 2005
P Ferrar, ‘Reflections from the field. Defying definition: Competences in coaching and mentoring’, in International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring 2(2), pp53-60, 2004
P Hawkins & N Smith, Coaching, Mentoring and Organizational Consultancy, Maidenhead, Berkshire: McGraw-Hill Education/OUP, 2006
G Hofstede, Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind, London: McGraw-Hill, 1991
K St John-Brooks, ‘Moral Support’, in Coaching at Work, January/February 2010, vol 5, issue 1
Coaching at Work, Volume 8, Issue 5