IN THE SPACE BETWEEN: SILENCE AS A SUPERVISION PRACTICE FOR TEAM COACHES
By Carissa Bub
As team coaching practitioners, we’re constantly seeking ways to deepen our presence and stay attuned to the relational field we’re working in. But what if one of the most powerful sources of insight, awareness, and transformation has been here all along, beneath the noise, beyond the words?
What if silence is not an absence, but a form of guidance?
Over the past several years, I’ve been developing what I now call the Art of Silence™. Rooted in my own transformational experience of walking in silence across the Sinai desert, this approach sees silence not as emptiness, but as a living, systemic force. It became clear to me that silence could serve as a powerful ally in team coaching supervision - a way to help practitioners access deeper knowing, presence, and collective insight.
This practice has evolved through decades of work with senior leaders, supervision groups, and systemically complex teams. At its core is the belief that silence is a technology of transformation.
Why Silence Now?
We’re living and working in increasingly complex, noisy environments. Many leaders, and coaches, are navigating transitions where the old ways no longer fit, and the new ways are not yet clear. These are what I call the in-between spaces. And it’s here, in these liminal places, that silence becomes most vital.
Silence invites us to pause the problem-solving and drop beneath the surface. To touch into what’s present but not yet named. To access more subtle forms of intelligence. And to allow what is emerging to take form in its own time.
For team coaches and supervisors, this shift from speaking to sensing, from analysis to awareness, can change everything.
Reframing Silence in Supervision
Traditional supervision often prioritizes reflective thinking and talking: reviewing dynamics, coaching interventions, and unpacking decisions. While valuable, this approach can tether us to the known and the cognitive.
The Art of Silence™ invites a different quality of engagement. One that allows both coaching supervisor and supervisee to access other dimensions of experience - intuition, emotion, somatic signals, and systemic awareness.
Neuroscience research increasingly affirms what contemplative traditions have long known: silence isn’t passive. It activates brain regions related to memory, creativity, emotional regulation, and insight. But more than that, it shifts our state. It slows us down just enough to let something deeper come through.
The Practice of Silence in Supervision
When I refer to silence as a “technology,” I mean a replicable, embodied approach that creates specific conditions for transformation. In supervision, whether with individual coaches or groups, intentional silence has shown itself to serve many functions:
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Cognitive Integration
Rather than rushing to analysis, we pause. We sit with what’s been shared and allow meaning to settle. This helps supervisees access what they know, not just what they think. -
Collective Presence and Wisdom
In groups, silence levels the playing field and invites access to the quantum field - the wider relational and energetic space in which insight and resonance emerge. It allows us to become clearer about what’s living at the edge, and to attune to other invisible forces including parallel processes and emergent potential. Silence also makes space for what hasn’t been said to be felt, named, or released. -
Restoring Emotional Balance
When there is a sense of burnout or heightened anxiety, compassionate silence can shift the field entirely; from urgency to curiosity, from overwhelm to groundedness. -
Strengthening the Relational Field
Sometimes we sit together with no agenda. These moments often lead to the deepest integration. Silence becomes the bridge, the holding space, the shared breath where connection matures.
From Awkward to Intentional: How to Introduce Silence
Silence doesn’t need to feel strange. It just needs to be made safe. Here’s how I guide it within the Art of Silence™:
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Frame it as an invitation, not a void:
“Let’s take a couple of minutes to sit with what’s just been shared. There’s nothing to do. Just notice.” -
Guide the entry gently:
“I’m inviting a moment of stillness. Simply hold the team you’ve been working with in your awareness. See what arises.” -
Model comfort and trust in the space:
Your own relationship with silence is palpable. If you’re grounded in it, others will follow. -
Offer choice and containment:
Let people know they can speak if needed. But invite them to notice the urge to fill the space too quickly.
What Shifts in Practice
Practitioners who engage with intentional silence in supervision often describe profound shifts in how they show up—not just in coaching, but in life:
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Greater attunement and presence with clients
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Access to intuitive and somatic knowing
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A more grounded, authentic coaching presence
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More comfort in not-knowing, in-between moments
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Capacity to sit with team tensions without rushing to resolve
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Deeper relational presence—being with others from a place of shared awareness rather than performance
Ultimately, silence becomes more than a supervision tool. It becomes a way of living as presence - meeting each moment with openness, attunement, and trust in what is arising. In team coaching, this presence creates a field where real transformation can occur - not just for clients, but for ourselves too.