This paper examines whether supervisors are primarily facilitators of reflection in the context of coaching psychology practice, learning, and continuing development. The evaluation begins with a discussion on the role and responsibilities of supervisors and an understanding of reflection. This is followed by a discussion on the role of supervisors in facilitating reflection and promoting growth and development.
Supervisors as Facilitators of Reflection:
Supervision plays an important role in supporting the professional capability and integrity of an executive coach because it helps in stirring the quality and safety of the client's coaching. For many organizations, investment in professional supervision is a reflection of a clear dedication to quality and ongoing development ("Supervision for You," n.d.). Generally, supervision contributes to better coaching since it provides benefits for executive coaches with the task of managing the effect of third parties in their coaching relationships. Some of the major benefits of supervision for the supervisee include helping practitioners to recognize their strengths and weaknesses, provides psychological creativity, insights, and research, and creates ethical awareness. The other benefit of supervision is that it enables practitioners to evaluate the impact of coaching work on their lives. Therefore, based on these benefits of supervision to practitioners, supervisors can be regarded as facilitators of reflection.
Role of Supervisors:
From a coaching psychology point-of-view, the process of supervising is similar to parenting because of the procedures involved. For a long period of time, the role of supervisors has been regarded as a top-down approach where these professionals act as leaders who provide direction to clients. However, new ways of supervising have emerged in the recent past and contributed to the significant change of the role of supervising from a top-down approach to a collaborative process. The change in the role of supervisor has been influenced by the realization that people tend to be more productive and effective if they are motivated, happy, and upbeat (Brooke, 2005). While individuals have not necessarily become soft-hearted, their productivity is not enhanced through the establishment of an employee-friendly environment. As a result, employers have become aware that happy employees and productive employees and provide appropriate training to supervisors in order to help in the development of an employee-friendly environment. Therefore, rather than the top-down, autocratic order-giver, supervisors have adopted a team leader approach in which they act as coaches and motivators. This means that supervisors currently providing coaching and motivation in order to help people realize their full potential in terms of productivity.
Reflection:
The term reflection is a common word for many individuals working in community service and service learning programs ("Understanding Reflection," n.d.). Since the term is derived from a Latin word, it means to bend back in order to receive insights on the apparently visible concepts or aspects. The act of reflection has become an important facet of people's education and productivity because it acts as the bridge between learning and experiences. Reflection goes beyond education since it's an opportunity with which an individual can learn from experiences. As a result, the process of reflection takes various forms and is associated with never-ending variety of issues. This is mainly because it promotes learning and motivates provocative thought and action that contributes to an individual's development. The effect of reflection on a person's growth and development takes place in areas like career exploration, professional development, intellectual pursuit, leadership development, and social change.
The facilitation of reflection is relatively a different process from leadership because leadership is what one does to a group while facilitation is what one does with a group ("Facilitating Reflection," n.d.). Leaders mainly differ from facilitators on the basis that they are cognizant about the use of control, power, and authority. On the contrary, facilitators serve as neutral mediators mandated with the task of providing information and accommodating communication and collaboration between participants.
Facilitators help people to work together towards the achievement of common goals and do not interject their own personal views or agenda in most cases. They tend to remain alert to the dynamics of a group and promote challenging reflection while sustaining respect and safety within the group. While they may play a leadership role in the group, facilitators relinquish control to the group through promoting open and democratic discussions among the members of the group. Notably, effective reflection requires that facilitators show an open-minded attitude, control group dynamics, communicate effectively, provide confidentiality, and incorporate diversity.
Role of Supervisors in Facilitating Reflection:
Supervisors basically possess theoretical knowledge about the context of group supervision and facilitation. The knowledge is accessible to the supervision group members and conveyed by sharing and conceptualization. In coaching psychology, supervisors, life coaches, and executive coaches are encouraged to have supervision for their work. Individuals and organizations alike are increasingly recognizing that supervision can be one of the most appropriate sources of developing talent, building excellence, and maintaining quality work (Caroll, 2006, p.4).
While supervisors possess theoretical knowledge regarding group facilitation, they do not transmit the knowledge but invite participants in the process of reflection (Kleinberg, 2011, p.236). As a result of participation in reflection, group members apply the theoretical and practical knowledge they have obtained from their experience as group facilitators. In this case, supervisors move from content to process through examining the developmental stage of the group at a particular moment. This in turn helps them to hold participants as individuals and the groups as a whole.
Supervision is primarily based on the assumption that reflecting on work offers the basis for learning from that particular work and carrying it out creatively. In coaching psychology, supervision is a form of experiential learning since it based on practice, which the major role of the coach supervisee. Therefore supervision is reflection-on-action or reflection-in-action which contributes to reflection-for-action (Caroll, 2006, p.4). Supervisors are considered as primarily facilitators of reflection because they develop a relationship and environment of safety and trust where supervisees lay out their work and review it with the coach. Actually, the pre-requisites for effective supervision and reflective practice include trust, safety, openness, and honesty (McClure, n.d.).
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