Coaching supervision is an emerging profession with a need of developing its knowledge base. However, there is a lack of understanding of the supervision process from the coaching supervisees’ perspective, a crucial element without which issues and debates about coaching supervision are incomplete. Furthermore, although most of the professional bodies that represent coaches in the UK require coaches to have supervision, they do not provide clear guidelines on how supervisee’s can use supervision effectively. This study aims to fill that gap, providing empirical evidence on how supervisees can help and hinder their supervision. A qualitative study was conducted, based on semi-structured interviews with nineteen participants – twelve supervisees and seven supervisors to gather data about participants’ lived-in experiences of coaching supervision. Critical realist Grounded Theory was used to analyse the findings, to describe the underlying psychological and social structures that are a condition for valuable coaching supervision and to generate a framework for how supervisees can help and hinder their coaching supervision. The study contributes empirically based insight into the benefits of coaching supervision from the perspective of the supervisee and adds to debates on the outcomes of coaching supervision. New evidence is provided about how supervisees can inhibit and enable their learning as they mature. Findings suggest that supervisee maturation can follow three stages and that how the supervisee interacts with their supervisor is affected by the relative stage. The study also identified that fear, power relations and our natural desire for learning might explain the lived-in experiences of supervisees. It was argued that supervisees can gain further value from the supervision experience by overcoming fear and stepping into their authority in the relationship in order to enhance learning. The study contributes to supervision practice by providing the first framework for supervisee-led supervision with guidelines for supervisees and supervisors, new stages of maturity to enable supervisees to understand where they are in their developmental journeys and practical recommendations for professional bodies, coach training organisations, coaching providers and learning and development practitioners.
Sheppard, L
Faculty of BusinessBusiness School
Year: 2016
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