You’ve helped your clients navigate big life changes, make decisions and figure out what to do next. That’s not nothing. But being able to navigate everyone else’s stuff doesn’t mean you’re not dealing with some messy bits in your own coaching practice too. And most of the time, you’re holding that on your own.

Needing support doesn’t make you weird.
Or weak.
Or any less of a good coach.

In fact, it’s part of doing this work well. Research into coaching supervision backs this up. It’s been linked to greater self-awareness, stronger professional judgement, and a more reflective, ethical approach to the work. (Passmore & McGoldrick, 2009; de Haan, 2017)

Which is exactly the stuff that’s hardest to see on your own.

The thing is, coaching can be surprisingly isolating. This is not the bit they put in the coach training brochure.

You’ve built a coaching practice you care about, but because of the confidential nature of the work, there aren’t many places you can take what’s happening in your sessions and really think it through.

So a lot of it just stays with you.

And when you’re regularly sitting with people through big decisions and difficult moments, it builds.

Which is where things can get a bit complicated:

• Convincing yourself you’re actually terrible at your job after looking at other coaches’ shiny websites.
• Feeling stirred up by your client’s stuff and having no idea where to put that energy.
• Wondering how the hell anyone else is making this work.
• Replaying sessions afterwards and picking apart everything you said.
• Wondering if you’re helping your clients… or just having a nice chat with them.

Bottom line: you’re helping clients find their way in the world, while your own can feel a bit all over the place. This is actually what supervision is for.

Another pair of experienced eyes on your client work. Somewhere to take the sessions that stay with you.

We’ll look at your clients, your responses to them, and the judgement calls you’re making in the work. Sometimes that means understanding a client differently. Sometimes it means noticing something about yourself. Usually it’s a bit of both.

This isn’t business coaching. You won’t leave with a fancy sales funnel, a content plan, or a clarity statement about who you serve and why it matters. (There are plenty of white, middle-aged men on LinkedIn who can help you with that).

Coaching culture loves a transformation story. The stuck client who found their purpose, the leader who finally learned to trust themselves, the person who just needed someone to believe in them. It makes great content. It’s also about half the picture.

Real client work has edges. Sessions where you’re not sure you helped. The ones you replay on the drive home. The client who said one thing and meant something else entirely, and you only realised that at 11pm. The moment where something shifted and you’re not quite sure what.

Supervision is where you take that work. Where “I don’t know what happened in that session” is a perfectly good place to start.

I’m a Senior Practitioner Coach with the EMCC, and I’ve been running my full-time coaching practice since 2013, with over 9,000 hours of client work behind me.

I’m also dual-trained in coaching and psychotherapy, which means I tend to notice both what’s happening in the coaching itself, and what might be going on underneath it.

Those thousands of coaching hours over the years have exposed me to a huge range of client problems, dilemmas, and stuck points. I’ve seen the lovely, rewarding side of coaching, and the bits that can leave you staring into space afterwards wondering whether you handled that well, missed something important, or are now going to think about that session while unloading the dishwasher.

Supervision gives you the space to slow things down, think properly about your work, and make sense of what’s actually going on, with your client, with yourself, and in the coaching relationship.

Sometimes that leads to a practical next step. Sometimes it helps you spot a pattern. Sometimes it’s the relief of realising you’re not losing the plot, this work is just complicated.

My approach is pragmatic, thoughtful and encouraging. You’ll be supported, and you’ll be stretched, but never left floundering on your own.

My supervision training is accredited by the EMCC, the Association for Coaching, and the International Coaching Federation.

Ama Results