Supervision in Coaching

Supervision, Ethics and Continuous Professional Development

Jonathan Passmore

• Publisher: Kogan Page
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9780749455330
• eBook ISBN: 9780749462970
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Commerce
• Subtopic: Gestion des ressources humaines

Coaching is rapidly growing from a young, emerging profession to one that is becoming more established on a global scale. As professional coaching grows, so does the need for a more formulated approach to regulation, ethics and individual development. In order for coaches to develop their skills and knowledge they need to make continual professional development and supervision a core aspect of their practice.

Published with the Association for Coaching, Supervision in Coaching examines how coaches can use a range of professional development tools to improve and develop their coaching. Written by a team of international coaching practitioners, it provides essential guidance on this increasingly key area of coaching practice. The authors provide advice on a range of topics, including approaches to supervision, managing ethical dilemmas, the role of regulation and licensing in coaching and the development of accreditation and professional standards.

Part 1 Approaches to supervision

Supervision and continuous professional development in coaching

JONATHAN PASSMORE

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Introduction

Continuous professional development is becoming an essential part of practice for professionals. While coaching has yet to fully emerge as a profession, its progress over the past decade suggests that coaching has many of the features of a profession on a par with counselling. However, before becoming a profession a number of challenges need to be overcome.

The first of these challenges is the need for a distinct and unique body of knowledge. We can track the linage of coaching back to the 1930s (see for example Bigelow, 1938; Gorby, 1937). In the early period of coaching’s history, before 1990, research was sporadic (see, for example, Grant et al, 2010). From 1995 coaching practitioners and researchers have been working hard to build a research base. In the early period, 1995–2001, this focused on case studies, stories and descriptions of what coaches found worked for them (Kampa-Kokesch and Anderson, 2001). More recently we have seen a growth in quantitative studies and the use of more formalized qualitative research methods. We have also seen a development in research methods with papers using recognized methods such as Grounded Theory and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) and well described method statements, which are characteristics of a developing research maturity (Passmore and Fillery-Travis, 2011).

A second challenge is the development of recognized and formalized training. The status of a profession is often measured by the level of training demanded. High status professions often require practitioners-in-training to study for five to seven years and through this process to obtain postgraduate qualifications. Examples include doctors and accountants, where entry is through rigorous university and professional examination. In contrast healthcare workers and accounts clerks may require more limited training, which is in turn reflected in the status and financial rewards they obtain.

A third challenge is an agreed code of conduct, such as an ethical code. Such codes set out publicly the standards required of members of the profession. These codes set expectations for the public and also offer members of the public protection through a formal complaints mechanism. Such complaints mechanisms can ultimately lead to members of the profession being barred from practice.

A fourth challenge is a perception among members that they belong to a single group with a shared definition of their practice. A dentist knows, as does the public, what his or her role is and what the limits of practice are. This is not to say there are not grey areas or boundaries, but dentists have an identity that binds them together.

A fifth challenge is the role of continuous professional development (CPD). In short this involves undertaking ongoing development after completion of the formal training. CPD has become accepted in coaching as an important aspect for coaching practitioners. There has been a growth in coaching supervision, coach training and publications. This book focuses on the emerging area of coaching CPD, with a specific focus on supervision as an approach that has become widely accepted as a useful model for coaching practitioners for reviewing and enhancing their practice.

This chapter will reviews the sections of the book and offer a short insight into the developing nature of coaching CPD and supervision.

Supervision in coaching

The first section of the book focuses on alternative models for supervision practice – little has been written on this topic to date. One exception is Peter Hawkins’ (2007) ‘Seven-eyed model’, which is summarized in Excellence in Coaching. The majority of models including Hawkins’ are drawn from social work, nursing or counselling practice. While there are clear parallels with these professions, there are also important differences which should be reflected by coaching developing models of practice to suit the demands of coaching.

The chapters in this section offer varying perspectives on supervision approaches, from a reflective practitioner model through action learning to more traditional psychological approaches used in coaching such as Gestalt and humanistic. We hope to stimulate debate through the inclusion of chapters on the imagined field and the role of presence in supervision which are relatively new to many in coaching.

As an emerging profession coaching needs to develop its own body of knowledge suited to the unique demands and clients in the field. Such knowledge can of course be inspired by and grounded in other domains of practice, but for coaching to describe itself as a profession this knowledge must be distinct. A failure to create unique knowledge and models will lead to coaching being considered a sub-set of counselling or mentoring.

As yet we do not have universally agreed models of practice. Even the relevance of supervision has been in question. Given the diverse nature of coaching, diversity in continuous professional development can be considered to be a strength. Such diversity recognizes that coaching works in many different spheres, from individuals at work to those outside, from personal coaching for health and education and for one-to-one and for groups.

Coaching ethics and the law

In this section we have three chapters that focus on the development of ethical standards and the law. In the first of these, Claire Townsend reviews the development of ethical codes of practice in coaching. The development of these codes is a relatively new phenomenon. Most of the coaching professional bodies’ codes only date back to around the millennium and some are newer than this. Further, given the unregulated nature of coaching, few of the codes have been tested through public complaints and the need to remove members. The chapter compares and contrasts the codes adopted by the main coaching professional bodies to guide coaches in understanding the subtle but important differences that regulate their practice.

In the second chapter we present a model for ethical decision making. Given the complex, changing and contradictory nature of codes of ethical practice, plus the variable level of awareness among coaching practitioners of the contents of such codes, we have tried to develop a model to frame ethical decision making. The ACTION model, like GROW, aims to be easily remembered and is grounded in research with coaching practitioners. In this way coaching is gradually building its own unique field of knowledge.

The third chapter focuses on the legal issues which can impact on coaches, from data protection to confidentiality. These are rarely discussed in the literature but are a foundation of ethical practice, as coaches need to ensure they comply with the legal requirements of the government or the State in which they operate as a minimum requirement.

Taken together the three chapters aim to offer an overview of the issues facing coaches and a structure for continuous professional development.

Continuous professional development

In the third section we draw on the thinking of two groups of writers, one from the UK, the other from the United States on their ideas about continuous professional development. In the first chapter David Hain and his colleagues argue the case for CPD’s role in coaching. They note that while CPD is sometimes regarded as an additional pressure in a time-constrained world, it has a vital role to play in helping coaches keep up to date. We share these views.

Continuous professional development is a vital part of coaching and a critical aspect if coaching is to establish itself as a separate profession. Some might hold the view that it is a foregone conclusion that coaching will become a profession. In my view the jury is still out. Coaches and coaching bodies, such as the Association for Coaching and the International Coaching Federation, have some choices to make. One route leads to a continuation of growth and aspects of professionalization, but not professional status. A second route leads to coaching becoming a recognized and respected profession.

In the 1950s academics in the United States debated the role of management and its growing professionalization. Over the past 60 years management has become acknowledged as an important skill for people leading other people. Management has developed a body of unique knowledge, training courses exist at postgraduate level such as the MBAs, but it has failed to become a profession. We might consider why this is the case.

One reason why management has failed to establish itself as a distinctive profession is that management is diverse. The term can be applied in many situations from the person managing an assistant to the role of the chief executive of Microsoft. Both may be managers but their roles are different. Management lacks a single bond that ties together these diverse groups.

A second hurdle that ‘management’ has not overcome is an agreement on training to enter the profession. In accounting or medicine, an agreed qualification offers entry to the profession. Without the qualification and registration, a recognized title cannot be used. Such titles often come about because of trade bodies arguing the case to protect a title that is subsequently protected by law.

A third challenge that has blocked the development of management towards professional status is the lack of a body to represent its interests with a single voice. While diversity can be a positive step, for example accounting has a number of different bodies, it can lead to infighting and introspection as members look to differentiate themselves from one another, as opposed to seeking uniting common themes in their practices and definitions.

Coaching suffers from similar challenges. So far efforts to bring together and gain agreement between professional bodies have failed. Even in relatively small and more regulated states such as Norway the experiences of collaboration have proved negative (Svaleng and Grant, 2010). The relatively large number of professional bodies can be seen as a weakness if the aim is to establish a single profession, particularly if members of those bodies see themselves as unique or different from members of other bodies.

Furthermore, coaching has yet to fully resolve issues of training and access to the profession. Almost all of the professional bodies have established accreditation arrangements. These largely remain practitioner focused, reflecting the dominance of practitioners and independent coaches on professional committees within ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Dedication
• Imprint
• Table of contents
• Foreword
• Notes
• Part 1 Approaches to supervision
• 1 Supervision and continuous professional development in coaching
• 2 The reflective coaching practitioner model
• 3 Action learning supervision for coaches
• 4 The Gestalt supervision model
• 5 Self-supervision using a peer group model
• 6 Narrative supervision – the experiential field and the ‘imaginal’
• 7 Non-directive supervision of coaching
• 8 Presence in coaching supervision
• Part 2 Coaching ethics and the law
• 9 Ethical frameworks in coaching
• 10 Coaching ethics – developing a model to enhance coaching practice
• 11 Legal considerations in coaching
• Part 3 Continuous professional development
• 12 Continuous professional development for coaches
• 13 Creative approaches to continuous development
• 14 Undertaking and reviewing coaching research as CPD
• Part 4 Personal reflection
• 15 Coaches’ use of reflective journals for learning
• 16 Building emotional, ethical and cognitive capacity in coaches – a developmental model of supervision
• 17 Using case studies for reflective practice
• Full imprint