Mentoring & Supervision: Tending to Your Coaching Garden
Mentoring & Supervision: Tending to Your Coaching Garden
As a coach, you’re always learning and growing the “garden of your coaching practice. Along the way, two types of support often show up: mentor coaching and coaching supervision. They both help you become a better coach—but in very different ways. Think of them as two important aspects of growing your coaching practice to become a thriving, satisfying and rewarding and unique garden.
Mentor Coaching: Planting and Growing Your Garden
The International Coaching Federation (ICF) describes mentor coaching as “coaching and feedback in a collaborative, appreciative and dialogued process, based on an observed or recorded coaching session, to increase the coach’s capability in coaching, in alignment with the ICF Core Competencies.”
Mentor coaching is like learning how to plant, prune, water, and nurture each plant in your coaching “garden.” As coaches, mentoring helps weed out bad habits, and enhance technique and timing, to optimize yields.
In practice, that means mentor coaching is all about your coaching skills—things like presence, active listening, and evoking awareness. You’ll receive direct feedback and guidance that helps you reflect on each session and improve your technique.
Mentoring is also essential for your first ICF credential (ACC, PCC, MCC) where 10 hours of mentor coaching over at least three months is a requirement. If you are an ACC coach planning to renew at the ACC level, 10 hours of mentor coaching (7 of which can be group mentoring) are required every 3 years. At the PCC level and higher, giving and receiving mentoring offers you one ICF-CCE for every hour you participate in, up to 10 hours of each (giving and receiving).
Supervision: Tending to Your Garden Over Time
Supervision, on the other hand, is less about your technique and more about you as a whole coach. The ICF defines it as “a collaborative learning practice to continually build the capacity of the coach through reflective dialogue for the benefit of coaches, their clients, and the system as a whole.”
In supervision, you have space to:
Reflect on the dynamics of your coaching relationships.
Explore ethical questions.
Bring a systemic lens and a deeper systemic awareness into all aspects of your work.
Illuminate and resolve unconscious blocks and blind spots that limit your potential.
Connect with community and receive support to stay resourced and inspired.
Discover strategies to support yourself and the broader systems you work within.
and more…
Supervision might be thought of as not just tending to the plants in your garden, but also the soil, water, rotations, pollinators, pests and the surrounding environment. Checking in on the overall health of one’s garden at regular intervals allows us to notice patterns and make systemic adjustments over time.
From an ICF standpoint, supervision counts toward CCE credits (1 CCE for every hour of supervision) which can be used for credential renewal at all levels of your coaching journey.
Why Both Matter
Both mentoring and supervision are essential aspects to growing your coaching garden successfully. Mentor coaching helps you build skills, while supervision helps you sustain yourself and your practice. Together, they ensure you grow not just as a skilled coach, but as a grounded, resilient one. May your coaching garden provide you endless joy and abundance!
Looking to get mentor coaching hours for your next renewal or credential? Check out my 1-1 and group mentoring opportunities here.
If you’ve worked with me in mentoring or constellation training, supervision may be the perfect next step. It’s where skills meet reflection, and where you continue to expand as a coach. Click here to find out more.
