Moving Forward Together: The Reflexive Supervisor

Becoming a Supervisor: Finding a Mentor Who Helps You Become the Supervisor You Want to Be

I still remember what it felt like to become a supervisor.

As a doctoral student in MFT, I had a supervision course and began gaining experience by supervising masters students and supervising “behind the mirror” Family Center clinic nights. I was gaining experience supervising while experiencing supervision mentoring myself. 

Then in community mental health, after a Team Leader promotion, I began supervising bachelor’s level psychosocial group leaders which was different because they lacked clinical training but were providing group treatment. 

I had spent years developing as a clinician. I had completed my licensure process, worked in community mental health, gained experience across multiple settings, and developed confidence in my clinical abilities. I knew how to build relationships, think systemically, and support clients through difficult experiences.

And then I became a clinical supervisor.

What I quickly discovered was that being a skilled therapist and being a skilled supervisor are not the same thing.

Also, supervising as a doctoral student was not the same as supervising bachelor’s level non-clinical staff.

And supervising non-clinical staff was not the same as supervising masters MFT students.

Like many new supervisors, I started by doing what I knew.

I supervised the way I had been supervised.

There was structure, but not a lot of structure. There were rich conversations. We talked about cases. We explored culture and identity. We reflected on relationships and therapeutic process.

In many ways, my supervision looked similar to the supervision experiences I had received throughout my career. The difference was that this time I was the one responsible for facilitating the process. This time I was the one making mistakes. This time I was the one learning.

As a supervisee, I had often been the person bringing conversations about culture, race, identity, and systemic inequities into supervision.

As a supervisor, I found myself thinking differently about those conversations. I began asking new questions:

How do supervisors create space for cultural dialogue?

How do supervisors navigate power and authority across difference?

How do supervisors support growth while also evaluating performance?

How do we help supervisees develop cultural humility without creating shame?

Those questions led me into a deeper exploration of cross-cultural supervision, supervision theory, and supervisor development.

For the first time, I was studying supervision from the supervisor's perspective rather than simply experiencing it from the supervisee's chair and what I discovered along the way was both freeing and challenging.

I realized I had been carrying an unspoken assumption that supervision had to look similar to the supervision I had received. And while there was much about my supervision experiences that I valued, there were also things that had been missing.

I began asking myself:

What if I didn't have to recreate my supervision experience?

What if I could build something that reflected both what I learned and what I wished I had received?

That question changed everything.

As I became more comfortable in my identity as a supervisor, I started bringing more of myself into the process. I stopped trying to fit into someone else's model of supervision and started developing a supervision approach grounded in my own values, experiences, and beliefs. I became more intentional about structure. More intentional about developmental goals. More intentional about helping supervisees understand not only what they were doing, but who they were becoming. I became more intentional about self-of-the-therapist work, helping supervisees explore how their identities, experiences, values, emotions, and assumptions influence their clinical work. I became more intentional about cultural humility, creating space for conversations about race, culture, privilege, power, and difference without reducing people to simplistic categories. And I became more intentional about helping supervisees bring their whole selves into the room.

Over time, I realized that supervisor development requires many of the same things we ask of supervisees.

It requires self-awareness.

It requires reflection.

It requires humility.

It requires curiosity.

And perhaps most importantly, it requires permission to develop your own supervisory voice.

Too often, new supervisors focus on learning what to do.

While that is important, I believe an equally important question is:

Who are you becoming as a supervisor?

Your answer should not simply be a copy of your own supervisors.

It should reflect your values, your strengths, your experiences, your cultural lens, and your hopes for the people you supervise.

This is one reason I believe supervision mentoring is so important. A good supervision mentor does more than help you complete requirements or prepare your application materials. A good mentor helps you think intentionally about the kind of supervisor you want to become and supports your development along that journey.

Just as I often talk about the developmental arc of supervision for therapists, I believe there is also a developmental arc for supervisors.

We begin somewhere.

We grow.

We make mistakes.

We learn.

And over time we become more aligned with our own values and supervisory identity.

The question becomes: Who can help guide that process?

Five Questions to Help You Find a Supervision Mentor

1. Does this mentor support development, not just completion?

A mentor should help you think beyond obtaining a designation. Look for someone who is interested in your long-term growth as a supervisor, not simply helping you check boxes.

2. Does this mentor create space for self-reflection?

Supervision is relational work. Effective mentors help you explore how your experiences, values, emotions, and identities influence the way you supervise others.

3. How does this mentor approach culture, race, and difference?

Pay attention to whether cultural conversations are welcomed, avoided, or treated as an afterthought. Effective supervision mentoring should include meaningful engagement with culture, power, identity, and lived experience.

4. Does this mentor balance support and challenge?

Growth requires both. Look for someone who can affirm your strengths while also helping you identify blind spots and opportunities for development.

5. Can this mentor help me become my own kind of supervisor?

Perhaps the most important question of all. A strong mentor helps you develop your supervisory voice rather than encouraging you to become a copy of theirs.

Moving Forward Together

The best supervision mentors do not create replicas of themselves. They help cultivate thoughtful, reflexive, culturally responsive supervisors who can bring their whole selves into the work while remaining curious about the experiences of others.

As supervisors, we are constantly invited to hold complexity. We navigate relationships, culture, power, development, ethics, and growth—all at the same time.

We do not have to do that work alone.

The right mentor can help us clarify our vision, deepen our awareness, and develop the confidence to supervise in ways that are both intentional and authentic.

Because becoming a supervisor is not simply about learning how to supervise.

It is about becoming the supervisor you were meant to be.