What Can I Bring to Supervision? Potential Topics for Discussion

Each supervisor may approach this topic slightly differently depending on their way of working and expertise.    It is wise to clarify this with your supervisor in the early contracting stage.   However consider any of the following as legitimate areas for exploration and discussion:

• Bringing issues from your client/s work which are pre-occupying or puzzling you right now, or to which you have a reaction to, or notice you are behaving differently, or making different decisions around it than you normally would.
• Bringing issues from different function areas of your role as a coach or how you engage with aspects of your business model. e. engage in reflection on aspects of work that you need to be involved in such as Admin, Marketing, Business Development, Support, Mediation functions that may all be important aspects of your role as a coach.
• Sharing the good work you have done with particular client/s – think about what worked and why. This is often missed in supervision and a great way to reflect on and gain insight about the repeatability of what works.
• Reviewing an aspect of your work you would like to reflect on or feel stronger about, for example ending a client engagement, organisational/individual contracting, or 3 way triangular meetings.
• Specific client/s and the organisational system in which they operate – how they might be connected or not
• Any ethical questions that you’re unsure about, or questioning about something you believe may be an ethical issue
• In your role as an internal coach there may be potential role conflicts. How do you ensure you don’t use confidential information that you’re aware of to make decisions or influence others in your non-coach role? What happens if you get asked for information about your coachee from a senior staff member?
• How does culture and hierarchy influence the coaching conversation? How do you deal with coaching people from other cultures?
• What do you decide to bring to your supervision sessions – and what do you choose to leave out? This can be a useful discussion to deepen your self-awareness.

To further help you in preparation, you may wish to choose one or two specific clients and reflect on each of them using some of the guiding questions below. This may surface some relevant issues you can then bring into supervision.

• What did you notice while you were working with these individuals?
• Reflect on what happened for you, for the client, and when did it happen?
• What interactions were you pleased with and why?
• What was difficult for you? Do you know what may have been difficult for the client?
• What were you thinking and feeling during the conversation?
• What assumptions did you hold regarding what the individual was thinking and feeling? If you did, how did you act on that?
• What didn’t you say to the clients that you wish you might have? What stopped you?