Common Threads and Competencies: Coaching, Mentoring, Professional Supervision and Organisational Consultation

Most of our blogs are dedicated to helping practitioners in three specific lines of work: coaching, mentoring and professional supervision. If you have been following Verve Lead, you will see that I often group these practitioners together. You might ask; aren’t these unique professions with important differences, so is it appropriate to group these together?

While understanding the differences is necessary to those in these lines of work, I find it equally essential to address the commonalities between them. The big similarity here is that all these roles are meant to enable transformative actions in clients, which flows into a systemic transformation of their relationships. All of these roles work towards the same outcome for clients. 

Recently, I have been reading, Coaching, Mentoring, and Organizational Consultancy Supervision: Skills & Development by Peter Hawkins and Nick Smith (Second Ed McGraw Hill Educational 2013) which demonstrates just how much overlap these different professions have. It is dedicated to all those engaged in cultivating the leaders and the leadership necessary for meeting the challenges of our time. It addresses what elements and competencies the professions share and how they enable learning, development and transformational change. 

“In laying out the threads that we see running through the practice of coaches, mentors, organizational consultants and supervisors, we have charted the overall map that shows the type of terrain we seek to occupy and the tools we use for our work. We have tried to articulate the golden threads of our practice across these roles and gain some clarity as to the elements that make them up.” P21 

Hawkins and Smith’s book also covers some familiar ground; chapter twelve, Core Skills and Capabilities, uses the CLEAR model to develop coaching and supervision. I have championed of this model for a long time and referred to it on several occasions in posts.

The CLEAR model stands for Contracting, Listening, Exploring, Action, and Review. While being developed for Coaching and Supervision, I have found it equally applies to mentoring. The main thread here is the emphasis on personal reflection, a true essential for all three professions. 

In the following chapter, Hawkins and Smith lay out the key qualities that all coaches, mentors and supervisors require to be effective:  

“We consider all of these core capacities essential for being an effective coach,

mentor, consultant and supervisor and the job of reflective practice, supervision

and CPD (Continual Professional Development) is to continue to expand them and help them to be more fully embodied

and lived in the practice of the work.

1 Appropriate leadership.

2 Authority, presence and impact.

3 Relationship engagement capacity.

4 Ability to develop leadership, reflective practice and self-supervision in others.

5 Holding one’s power and ability to impact.

6 Working across differences, transculturally sensitive to individual differences.

7 Ethical maturity.

8 A sense of humour and humility.” p270

I recommend this book to anyone working to transform leaders as coaches, mentors or professional supervisors. The common thread of enabling transformation between these professions is what makes these roles so vital to their clients and the communities which they serve. 

Reflection: 

What methods am I using to enable transformation in my clients? 

What other commonalities are there between these professional roles? 

What’s my next step to grow as a practitioner?

Visit the Verve Lead Mentor Growth Track.