What coaching requires

There is a way of thinking about coaching that we find useful. The coach is, in some sense, the most curious student the coachee has ever had to teach. The coachee holds the expertise, about their own situation, their own thinking, their own patterns. The coach's job is to learn from that with enough skill and attention that the coachee, in the process of being heard, learns something too.

To do that well requires more than technique. It requires ongoing development of self. An awareness of your own blind spots, your own tendencies, the places where your thinking gets in the way of theirs.

What supervision is

Supervision in coaching is a structured relationship between a coach and a more experienced practitioner, focused on the coach's development and the quality of their practice. It is not performance management. It is not assessment. It is a space for reflection on the work, what is happening in the coaching relationship, what the coach is noticing, what they might be missing.

To summarise at a simplistic level, and with the acknowledgement that there is considerably more to this: supervision is how good coaches become better ones.

The leading institutions that define the standards for professional coaching credentials require coaches to evidence supervision as part of the process. At Hatch, supervision is built into the model for every coach with an active client booking. That was a deliberate decision to not only support the coach's credentialling pathway but to provide reassurance to Hatch clients that their coaches are being actively supported to do their best work.

Why we built it in

The coaches we work with are at an important stage of their professional development. They are accumulating hours, building practice, developing their own voice as coaches. That process is enriched when it happens with guidance, when there is someone alongside who can help them see what they are developing into, not just what they are doing.

Supervision, in that sense, is not just good for the coach. It is part of what makes the coaching relationship trustworthy.

At Hatch we believe that learning with guidance produces something that learning alone cannot. And we believe the coaches who are most proud of their work are, without exception, still curious about how to do it better.