From Formative to Transformative: Rethinking Developmental Supervision in Mature Coaching Practices

The formative function of coaching supervision is often described as the developmental thread – the space where a coach reflects on their practice, builds skill, explores frameworks, and sharpens their approach. It’s a foundational aspect of supervision, and rightly so.

But what does this look like for the experienced coach – someone who has long internalised the models, frameworks, and competencies of coaching? What happens when the technical becomes tacit, and the coach’s questions shift from “What did I miss?” to “What’s changing in me?” or “Who am I becoming in my work?”

In this article, we explore how the formative function continues to serve even the most seasoned of practitioners – not as instruction or correction, but as a gateway to a more transformative kind of development.

The Formative Function: Always Present, Always Evolving

At its core, the formative function supports a coach’s growth in practice. That doesn’t disappear with experience – if anything, it becomes more important to remain vigilant against subtle drift, unconscious habits, and professional stagnation.

Even highly experienced coaches benefit from returning to the craft itself:

• Are my ways of working still serving the client, or have I fallen into patterns?
• How do I ensure my work remains fresh, present, and responsive?
• What’s the quality of my attention, challenge, or relational presence in sessions?

This is the ongoing work of reflective practice – ensuring that technical fluency does not slip into unconscious competence. In this sense, formative supervision acts as a touchstone for quality and intentionality, no matter how long one has been coaching.

From Doing to Being: When Development Becomes Transformative

That said, the developmental edge often shifts over time. For newer coaches, the formative function may focus on tangible aspects: refining contracting, exploring interventions, working with endings. It’s grounded, practical, and often structured.

But with maturity comes a different kind of inquiry – one that blends professional reflection with personal evolution. For experienced coaches, supervision often becomes less about how they coach and more about who they are in the coaching space.

Questions begin to shift:

• What assumptions have I outgrown – or grown into?
• Where am I working from habit, and where from congruence?
• How has my coaching identity evolved – and what wants to emerge next?

Here, the formative function becomes less about improvement and more about integration. It retains its developmental focus, but the nature of that development is different – deeper, slower, often more personal.

Supervising the Seasoned: Holding Depth and Discipline

This evolving edge asks something different of the supervisor too. The task becomes less about guiding skill and more about co-holding a space where the coach can explore identity, presence, and impact.

Yet the work is still formative – it is still about growth. What shifts is the balance between working on the practice of coaching and working on the person of the coach.

In supervision with seasoned practitioners, we might:

• Explore subtle shifts in presence or resonance.
• Reflect on patterns of energy or emotional labour.
• Surface questions of meaning, purpose, or congruence.
• Revisit foundational models with fresh eyes, integrating new insight.

This is where the formative function becomes quietly transformative – not because it has changed its purpose, but because the terrain of development has changed.

Who Am I as a Coach? The Practitioner Behind the Practice

As supervision evolves into more transformative territory, another layer of reflection often emerges – not just how I coach, but who I am as a practitioner. This moves beyond presence-in-the-moment and into the wider terrain of identity, values, and professional posture.

Here, the formative lens is turned not only onto specific coaching conversations but onto the arc of the coach’s professional self. Questions arise around alignment, authenticity, and legacy:

• What defines me as a coach – and how consciously have I shaped that?
• What philosophies underpin my work – and are they still fit for purpose?
• What tensions exist between who I am and who I think I should be in this field?

These are not abstract musings. They affect how coaches position themselves, relate to clients, choose methodologies, and navigate ethical decisions. Supervision becomes a space to re-examine these foundations – to bring unconscious identity into conscious choice.

In this way, formative supervision supports not just the doing or the being of coaching – but the becoming of the coach as a whole.

A Dual Lens: Practice and Person, Technique and Identity

For all coaches – whether early-career or deeply experienced – the formative function remains a vital pillar of supervision. What matters is how it is held.

• For newer coaches, it may be a more structured exploration of methods and mindset.
• For experienced coaches, it becomes a space of reflection, reinvention, and sometimes reckoning.

But in truth, both lenses – formative and transformative – can be present at any moment. Even the most reflective coach can benefit from sharpening their contracting. And even the newest coach may be grappling with deeper identity questions.

The role of the supervisor is to sense where the energy lies, and to offer the right kind of container for what wants to be explored.

Conclusion: Depth Without Discarding

To speak of moving “from formative to transformative” is not to discard the former in favour of the latter. Rather, it is to recognise that growth is layered – and that supervision must be agile enough to meet coaches at the edge of their development, whatever shape that takes.

Formative supervision is not a stage to pass through – it is a lifelong companion. But its tone, depth, and focus evolve as the coach evolves.

In this way, supervision becomes not just a space to develop practice, but to deepen identity – and to continually reconnect with the work, the self, and the profession as they grow in tandem.