As some of you know, I blog BUT actually, I am a lecturer and trainer, a business coach, supervisor and a spiritual director. The next two blogs will be about supervision vs. coaching, starting with supervision.

What is Supervision, after all?  

Supervision is a relational process of personal development where the client(s)become aware of and reflect on and then develop their personal resources for positive change both regarding themselves and their work environment.  It’s an inductive learning process where one finds negative (stuck) patterns that serve both the client’s needs for change and growth, and it has the goal of optimizing and providing for the needed security in the client’s work and personal development so that change can happen.

Both supervision and coaching are solution-oriented and look at career/work life.  Both focus on these four areas of competency: character and personal (EQ); organizational and systemic; relational and social (EQ); and finally, the goal is to become “fit to perform”: in occupational, decision-making, work responsibilities, and ability to perform at work.

Supervision can have many settings: one-to-one supervision, in groups, in teams, in organizations (for change and development), with leaders, with other coaches, with social workers and psychologists, or even with health professionals like doctors and nurses.

In my training experience part, I have worked with a SME team, with a CEO, with someone looking to retire, and someone else who was having a sort of mid-life crisis.  These practical experiences added to my startup, leadership, SME, job search and change, burnout, and other business coaching clients out my portfolio quite a bit.

So, here is a run-down of the supervision history, goals, and areas of focus:

·      Historically from the helping and medical professions

·      Change via reflection

·      Focusing also on the “Why” that whatever brought about the issue for the client

·      A learning process to discover and develop the client’s resources

·      Whole-life view: work/career and home, past present and future

·      Development in client to be “fit for work”

·      Longer look at efficacy of client with a solution (success) for the long-term

·      There is absolutely no need for the supervisor to have knowledge of the client’s occupational field

·      The goal is not Just the goal, but also the path, the way the client reaches to goal: it’s a process.

·      Looking for balance and how the client’s biography affects their work-life and home-life

·      Topics of supervision for single clients include: roles, identity, profession; in groups: themes from same career (eg, for teachers), case studies, group dynamics in the supervision process; for teams: general team development, role clarification, defining the rules and norms, team development for its influence in the organization; in projects: role clarification, focus on group dynamics, company/leader-set topics, interventions that are mostly project-oriented; and finally in organizational change: role clarification, group dynamics, and change process support

Now let me compare coaching in its history, goals, and areas of focus

·      Focus on change of skills and actions, mostly at work

·      It’s short-term and activity-oriented

·      Functionality of the client’s work is enhanced

·      The orientation is present and future, leaving the past (and the “Why”) to supervision

·      There’s a shorter view of solutions, generally is a shorter process

·      The goal is the goal- period