Coaching Skills for Research Supervisors

Dr. Steve Hutchinson is a professional, certified coach and co-author of Coaching and Mentoring for Academic Development (Guccione and Hutchinson 2021).   He has coached academics on six continents and at dozens of research institutions and is part of the coaching panel for the UKRI Future Leader Fellows scheme.

There comes a moment for all research supervisors in which we find joy and anxiety in equal measure. This is the day where our doctoral researcher blows past us intellectually at least in some areas of the work, project or discipline; where they discover new territory into which we’re not intellectually capable or qualified to go. Of course, as supervisors we want our doctoral researchers to become independent and original in their thinking (and if they’re not, then what have we both been doing?) and this watershed moment will hopefully be a huge source of pride and accomplishment for us both. However, as we know a doctoral journey is not always linear or straight-forward. This moment might come at any point in our PGR’s doctoral journey, not necessarily as they hand in their completed thesis, or conclude a successful Viva. So: how can we build an effective supervisory relationship that can not only survive this powerful transfer of expertise, but can become more effective, more valuable, and more mutually beneficial to both our PGRs and ourselves?

Using a Coaching Approach

As supervisors, we want to help manoeuvre our candidates away from dependency solely upon supervisory expertise; either by growing their skill and criticality or by building their confidence. It’s here where coaching skills come into play.

Think about the word ‘coaching’ and ask yourself what you think a coach actually does. List out some core skills and behaviours. You may have in mind here sports coaches, life coaches or business coaches – but I would expect that many of the skills on show are the same. Even a coach who has a high degree of knowledge about a field will still place a focus on their ‘client’s’ learning and goals, rather than prescribing a certain way of succeeding. In order to do so they must strike a balance between helping people build their:

As a supervisor, you’re not a ‘C’oach but you can be coach-like in your approaches.

Understanding the Coaching Role

Without getting into deep theory, the coaching role is, in essence, helping others to plan and improve their own performance so as to achieve specific goals, and then capture lessons from this activity so high performance can be recreated. It is worth remembering these three key words;

Goals               Planning           Learning

What is most fascinating is that by enquiring after these areas (i.e. So what’s the next goal? What needs to happen to get there? What did you learn from that experience?), it’s possible to provide significant support without any intellectual subject knowledge whatsoever (i.e. If our supervisee has a success – what did they learn? If they have a failure – what did they learn?).

Behaviourally, an effective coach-like approach is bound up in the following elements. 

1. Show them that you’re on their side. Even if you’re challenging them. You need to evidence that your committed to helping them to achieve their goals (which may not be entirely the same as your goals…).
2. Design the relationship consciously. What do you really need to know about each other so you can work together well? What do you both want? You may need to ask and be flexible and even vulnerable here.
3. Recognise that a researcher’s life extends beyond their project. How they ‘feel’ about things can be just as important as what they ‘think’ and ‘do’.
4. Listen to and focus on what they say – which is different to waiting for your turn to espouse your expertise. Telling them what you would do (or did twenty years ago) may be one option, but others are available.
5. Work with their energy – even if it takes them away from your territory. You may have experience to help them, but this is ultimately their project.
6. Ask powerful questions. Enquiries that are open (at first), short, non-leading, and future focussed will keep you in productive territory. Take care with ‘why’ questions. They’re exactly right for building critical abilities, but they move thinking to the past not the future. Choose your W (why/what/which) carefully and intentionally.
7. Focus on planning, goals and learning – towards the future: e.g. “It was a learning experience.”; “So what did you learn?”; and later  “How will you apply that lesson?”
8. Ensure accountable clarity. What specifically will they do and by when? What precisely might get in the way?

The Five ‘C’s of Confident Coaching Conversations

Of course, alongside your technical expertise, your time is what your researcher really wants. Coaching skills offer a powerful and sensible option when a researcher needs non-intellectual support and/or when your goal during a supervision meeting is to support them to become an independent scholar capable of growth, personal development and critically nuanced original thinking.

So, ask about:

• Challenges – what are they finding specifically difficult? (So you can facilitate. You may have no idea how to get a job in industry, but you can still coach your researcher in finding out the information that thy need so as to plan a transition.)
• Choices – what possibilities and options have they considered? (So they have a trusted sounding board)
• Consequences – what are the consequences of different directional choices? (So you can share your experience)
• Creativity – they’ve probably thought of the obvious stuff already… (and what worked for you statistically probably won’t work for them…)
• Conclusions – what will they do and by when? (So there is clarity and momentum).

Finally – just remember that if you’re being coach-like, there is no such thing as ‘try’ or ‘some’ or ‘might’ or ‘maybe’. Instead, focus on supporting your researchers to develop their capability, confidence and commitment: there’s lots of time for ‘I will’, ‘I can’ and for aspirational, realistic timelines.