Coaching super-vision is "the act of seeing the valley" (Kline, 2009), and involves supporting a coach “to engage in reflective dialogue and collaborative learning for the development and benefit of the coach, their clients and their organisations” (European Mentoring and Coaching Council). Super-vision is a deeply rewarding experience that helps promote a coach’s overall success, providing a supportive space to process conversations with clients, and enhancing the quality, standards, and ethics of a coach’s professional practice. Super-vision helps coaches keep in sight all of the systems at play during their work, including coaching interventions, the client, the coach-client relationship, the client's and coach's organizational contexts, and the coach's beliefs, values, and experiences that enter into every coaching interaction. Most coaches who sample coaching super-vision immediately realize the distinct advantage it provides in seeing and managing all of these systems, and then recognize the limitations of coaching effectiveness without that additional vision and support.
In addition to increased personal and professional satisfaction, coaching super-vision also presents a positive ROI, as improved quality of service helps you attract and retain more clients. Typically a one hour per month activity, it does not present a time burden. In much of Europe and especially in the U.K., clients and sponsors expect their coaches to be supervised. As this activity continues to become more widely known in North America, consumers there will increasingly expect coaches to be a participant in coaching super-vision when choosing their providers or awarding contracts.