We Could All Benefit from More Supervision
Sorry, what was that? You think we all need more supervision, you mean micro-management?
No, not at all. I am talking about supervision in its narrower sense, as time set aside for you to reflect on your relationships at work with someone who can help deepen your understanding of yourself and others. As such, it is one step beyond self-reflective practice. Supervision is time spent with a non-judgemental listener who can help shape your practice.
Many helping professionals — psychiatrists, therapists, coaches, and social workers — are familiar with supervision, in fact participation in supervision is obligatory if they are to maintain their licence to practice. However, I would argue that everyone can benefit from it.
I used to have a boss, Alex, who had a strong gut instinct. In fact he rarely used anything else to make decisions. A lot of the time he was right, but occasionally his gut reaction would lead to a conclusion of questionable quality. When I first worked with him I found this propensity alarming but over time I became more relaxed when I discovered that his poorer decisions were almost always reversed the following day.
On one occasion he fell out with one of our consultants and berated me for hiring the company in the first place, and then the next day he showed up, wandered up to my desk and confessed “That was all my fault.” I got to wondering what was behind this behaviour. I doubted that his self-reflection was that good. Eventually I discovered that he was married to a successful and emotionally intelligent businesswoman and I pieced it together: he had a great unofficial supervisory relationship.
Supervision and its benefits
In supervision, the supervisor and the practitioner talk through a relationship between the practitioner and a third party with a view to improving the content of the practitioner’s interventions (formative), providing emotional support (restorative) and quality assurance (normative). The emphasis on each of the objectives will vary depending on the nature of the relationship: some of my General Practitioner (GP) friends undergo supervision primarily for restoration, whilst a young team leader may benefit more from the formative dimension.
There are a number of different perspectives on supervision, but perhaps the best known — the seven-eyed model — is due to Hawkins and Shohet(1). In one of my Post-Graduate Certificate assignments at Sheffield Hallam University I added a time dimension to this to create the diagram below.
In a supervision meeting that provides the practitioner with a comprehensive outlook, the conversation will range over all seven viewpoints and three time frames; a single encounter between the practitioner and the third party, an entire issue between the two, and the entire history of their encounters.
If you’re not from a profession that routinely uses supervision, the term ‘parallel process’ may be unfamiliar. This refers to the unconscious links between the third party and the practitioner, which may invoke feelings in the practitioner, who may then carry the same feelings into their relationship with the supervisor. More detail on this can be found here.
Finding a supervisor
In the helping professions I mentioned at the outset, supervision is mandatory and undertaken by trained and accredited supervisors. However, the rest of us have a wider field to choose from. If we are looking for a second opinion on a working relationship, we might think about a trained coach, but equally a friend or partner. The caveat is that we are looking for someone capable of handling a wide range of interventions: John Heron identifies six categories (2).
You can see that not every friend or partner (or coach) will be comfortable with all of these categories. You are looking for someone who is sensitive enough to see you through catharsis, courageous enough to challenge you and wise enough to be able, on occasion, to offer the benefit of their own experience. If you can’t find one person who can give you a 360 view, try to imagine which interventions are going to be most helpful in your situation and choose someone on that basis.
It’s all in the intent I would contend. You are looking not for someone who is prepared to collude with you in the interests of keeping the peace, but someone who wants to help you become the best version of yourself that you can be.
Supervision is on the rise with more and more professionals and corporations recognising its value; the coaching delivered in businesses often has a high supervisory content.
Having spoken to friends who are teachers, one area where I feel supervision has much to offer is in secondary education, where newly qualified teachers currently have little visibility of the practice of more experienced practitioners and few opportunities to share their feelings with an empathetic listener.
In my view the growth of supervision can only be a good thing, offering the prospect of better practice, better psychological (and therefore physical) health and a more civilised workplace.
References
- Hawkins, P. and Shohet, R. (1989) Supervision in the Helping Professions. Maidenhead: Open University Press.
- Heron, J. (2001) Helping the Client: A Creative Practical Guide. Fourth Edition. London: Sage.
