Badass Therapists Building Practices That Thrive

162: The Biggest Mistakes Supervisors Make And How To Prevent Them

• Dr. Kate Walker Ph.D., LPC/LMFT Supervisor • Season 3 • Episode 162

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What actually goes wrong in supervision, and how do you prevent it before it snowballs?

In this episode, Dr. Ashley Stevens and I dive into the most common supervisor mistakes we see across counselor and social work settings. From over-hiring your very first month to being impossible to reach when supervisees truly need you, we unpack the decisions that create risk, rupture trust, and leave new supervisors feeling overwhelmed or blindsided.

We also name the often-ignored realities of supervision: the hours that happen outside your scheduled hour, the necessity of real relationships with work-site managers, and why evaluation and remediation (not personal criticism) are non-negotiable parts of ethical practice. Because supervision isn’t just a teaching role; it’s a leadership role. The sooner supervisors embrace structure, clarity, and the authority the job requires, the sooner the work becomes calm, aligned, and deeply rewarding.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • Why “one hour a week” is a myth, and how real supervision requires availability, boundaries, and protected space in your schedule.
  • How evaluation and remediation actually protect supervisees, clients, and you—and why relying on self-report is an ethical trap.
  • Why external supervisors must build relationships with work-site managers, and the consequences when you don’t.
  • Why every supervisor needs a contract and a working understanding of state law, even when rules don’t explicitly require it.

Ready to feel equipped, confident, and grounded as you step into supervision? Subscribe for more conversation about supervision, leadership, and building practices that thrive.

If you’re ready to lead with confidence, join the 2026 Supervisor Course waitlist for early access to bonus tools, templates, and fast-track grading. Strengthen your systems today with the free Supervision Onboarding Checklist, and get ongoing CEUs and live coaching inside the Step It Up Membership. You’re not just building a practice, you’re building a legacy.

Get your step by step guide to private practice. Because you are too important to lose to not knowing the rules, going broke, burning out, and giving up. #counselorsdontquit.

SPEAKER_00:

When we're external supervising, I think sometimes we're like, that's them, this is us. And some of the things that I've seen, some of the mistakes that I've made is not getting a better connection with their work manager or whatever. And having problems that arise that I had no idea about until it was too late.

SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to Band's Therapists, Building Practices Love. It's all about working smart, not public. And here's your host, Dr. Kelvin Doors, the neighborhood. Ever wonder what actually goes wrong in supervision and how to prevent it? In this episode, I'm joined by Dr. Ashley Stevens, my partner in developing the new social work supervisor courses. Together, we'll break down the top mistakes we see therapists make and what you can do differently when it's your turn to supervise. If you're even a little bit curious about becoming a supervisor, now's the time to explore it. Join the Early Bird wait list for the 2026 Supervisor Courses at KateWalkertraining.com slash earlybird. Now let's get to work. Hey, I'm Dr. Kate Walker and I am joined by my colleague, Dr. Ashley Stevens. I talk about counselor supervision and Ashley talks about social work supervision. And we're doing a few episodes about supervising, obviously, but really helping you who are on the fence about supervising. Either you've never supervised before and you're thinking about supervising, or maybe you hold a supervisor designation in your state, but you're really nervous to use it, or somebody has kind of scared you out of it. We talked about that, how people say, oh, no, no, no, take, no, don't take on supervisees. It's going to jeopardize your license, all of the things. Or maybe you're somebody who you did supervise and it did not go well, and you're thinking, no, never again, never again, right? So if you're listening to this, yay, I'm glad you're here because you're a little intrigued maybe about what we're talking about today, which of course we are going to talk about the top mistakes that supervisors make. Now, you want to check out our other episode where we talked about supervisor rookie mistakes because that's a thing. But we're actually going to dive a little bit deeper today and talk about mistakes that we've seen people make all across their career. And, you know, nobody's perfect. And even at Kate Walker Training, you know, we teach the courses to become counselor supervisors or social work supervisors all over the country. So we are definitely mindful that we are not creating little robots who do everything right. But what our courses are built on, it's this idea of support, right? We're here for you. We want to make sure that if you have questions or is this a mistake, that you're able to find the answers quickly. And we hope this episode helps you out with that. So, Ashley, anything you want to add to that?

SPEAKER_00:

No, I think it's great. Join us on the journey. It's always, always worth it. Even on the hardest days, it is so worth it to educate and train the next generation of therapists, counselors, social workers, whoever you have. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

All right. So I'll go first. We each, you know, kind of went through, you know, things that we're hearing on the internet and things that come through the course. So I wanted to talk about number one. This is for counselor supervisors. The biggest mistake I see right off the bat is when they get they being new supervisors. So you get your S, you've got your S in your hand, and you're like, okay, I'm gonna hire 12 supervisees. That's too many. You're brand new, you're just learning this new, and I like how Ashley calls it a lane. This is your new lane, your new lane of supervising, right? So you may be an amazing counselor and you've got the paperwork down, you got the scheduling down, you got the front office trained, everything's working, and then you're like, oh, I'm gonna add supervising and times 12. Right. So this is not counseling, you know, extra. Supervising is completely different from counseling. It's a different modality, it feels different in your mouth when you say the words. There are there's a whole different set of paperwork, things you have to be mindful of. So yeah, number one mistake, and not everybody does this. That's and that's why when I pick this out, it's it's something we see very rarely. It definitely, if you have not taken my course, because we talk about it in my course, start slow. And then if you want to be someone who takes on multiple supervisees because you know what you're doing, then yeah, by all means. I mean, I've got colleagues, I know Ashley has colleagues, and folks have multiple supervisees, but they've been doing it a while. And they're able to speak that language of supervision fluently, as opposed to, okay, I just finished the course and what am I doing? And oh, oh yeah, I overhired. So that's mine, Ashley. That's what do you got?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, and and second to that for sure. Go flow, low and slow and see what happens. So, for my first one, I think one of the biggest impacts that I've seen is for people who do not prepare themselves for what supervision entails. So I know when we talk about supervision, what a lot of us conceptualize is an hour a week. Well, I have an hour a week that I could dedicate to this group or this one individual or whatever. Please hear me when I say it is never just an hour a week. There may be some weeks where you have just the supervision hour, but the text messages, the calls, the crisis, the paperwork, the questions about what do I do in this situation? You need more time than I think most people think they need for this process. And I think it's a mistake to have a full-time job and just assume this is going to be just an hour of your time outside of that. In my perspective, and one of the things that I talk to new supervisors about is making sure you have a little bit more of that flexibility and the time for your supervisees, especially when they're new. If they can't reach you because you have an eight to five or you have sessions all day long, then you may actually be putting yourself and them at more risk by the inability for you to get back to them in a timely fashion. It is one of the reasons that I chose to make supervision kind of my primary job and therapy is secondary, was I recognized that a lot of my supervisees were coming to me from other supervisors and saying, like, I felt like I was a burden on them. Like I was this like the extra thing that they had to do rather than what Kate said, which is like a whole other thing. You're promising them some things, your time, your availability. And if all you have in your mind is an hour a week, I don't think it's gonna go very well. And I I've had some real growing pains that I've seen in new supervisors because they didn't factor that into what they thought this would be.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And we talk about that in the Kate Walker training courses. We talk about scheduling, we talk about how to make sure that you have the time and you teach your supervisees how and when and under what circumstances to contact you, what constitutes an emergency. I mean, that's really important for a supervisor course to cover because it's huge. Your unavailability is a liability or could be. So yeah, I second that too. Okay, so my next one is so kind of my my favorite topic is remediation and evaluation. Because you know, I teach the courses for the counselors, and it's almost this idea that if I interview perfectly, then I will have the most amazing supervisees. Or, you know, I talked about it in another episode, which is oh, all my supervisees are wonderful. I don't ever have to evaluate or remediate. It's like, are you sure? Are you sure that they really are? Because, you know, one of the things that we are asking our supervisees to do, or maybe I should call that a rookie mistake, is relying on their self-report, right? Just saying, hey, how's it going? Oh, it's going great. Yeah, okay, you have any clients you want to talk about? No, no, I'm fine. Okay, great. And moving on, right? That's huge. That's part of one of the mistakes that I'm I'm covering here, you know. But the idea that you would give up evaluating or you would say to yourself, okay, you know, they're graduated. I don't, I don't need to evaluate them. Well, what's gonna happen when they do make a mistake? Because that's the nature of supervising, we want them to tell us about their mistakes, not just try to make us smile when they walk in the room or come on the camera. So when something happens and all of a sudden, you know, and Ashley and I see this angry supervisors, like, I can't believe they did this. I'm gonna fire them. I'm, you know, it's like, well, have you been helping them all along with this skill? I mean, barring something egregious. I mean, you know, yeah, if you if they're doing drugs with their clients, no, no, I'm not talking, you know, that's you should have taught them not to do that. That's not what I'm saying. But if you are noticing a skill that's missing and you just want to bring the hammer down, but then you look back and you think, wait a second, did I ever give them a one out of five where five is great and one is not? Have I ever given them just a simple evaluation in order to communicate, hey, supervisee, you may be lacking in the skill. Hey, we may need to spend more time on this skill, or hey, I notice you're still struggling with this skill. So I think it's time for remediation. That piece of supervision gets ignored by so many supervisors because they want to downplay that hierarchy. And I've talked about this before, just going out and buying yourself a coffee mug that says I'm the boss on it, to understand that you must start from day one helping your supervisee understand you will evaluate them and you have the power to give them a remediation plan that could result in you not recommending them for full licensure. That hierarchy must be explained and maintained for the duration of this. And we teach this in the Kate Walker training courses. I talk about it in my book, the Clinical Supervision Survival Guide. We call it the OER triad orientation, evaluation, and remediation. It all has to go together. Or when you bring that hammer down, you are going to rupture that relationship. And the implications of that, you know, you might get a supervisee who starts hiding things from you. Again, they come in and they're all smiles telling you how wonderful they are, but they're not doing the best they could, where they need your help and they won't ask. So that's that's mine, Ashley.

SPEAKER_00:

What you got? Absolutely. And I think that like the term gatekeeper is that word that we use for a reason. The work is too important, it's too sacred to let any old, any old body in. They need to know that there were consequences for their actions. And if they're they're playing around with things in the beginning of the process, we need to nip it in the bud. You know, it just, it's so important. My second one is I really think that there needs to be more communication with the work site if the work site is not you. I think one of the things that people think is just like, that's their lane and this is my lane, and I'm gonna stick like clinical supervision is all I need. And so when we talk about you as a as an external supervisor, if that's something that you're taking on outside of work, and I could spend the whole TED talk on why I think that external supervision is such a better way to do this than internal, which can muck up with other stuff. But when we're external supervising, I think sometimes we're like, that's them, this is us. And some of the things that I've seen, some of the mistakes that I've made is not getting a better connection with their work manager or whatever, and having problems that arise that I had no idea about until it was too late, because maybe the supervisee also thought, well, that's a work thing, not a clinical thing. And one of those things coming to mind is documentation. I had somebody that was egregiously behind on documentation, but they didn't really see that like they were solid in their clinical skills. They were like good with the client, they just didn't prioritize that documentation as much. And work was about to let them go because of it. And I had no idea. And even if I have told the supervisee, you know, feel free to give them my number, feel free to let them know they can reach out to me if there are things that relate or that touch or that that we need to talk about in supervision, why it's important, why we need to tackle it. Maybe it's not actually the supervisee that needs to be doing that reaching out. It's me as the external supervisor who's saying, Who's your boss? Give me their number. I'm just gonna say, hey, I'm here. Let me know if you have anything. And if I see anything on my end, I will let you know. Because at the end of the day, yes, the supervisee is our client in some ways, but the client, their patients, their clients, their people that they're doing this work with are what is most important. So we need to keep them in front and say, like, yeah, that may not like what time you get to work, if you're three minutes late and you're, I don't care about that. That's not me. Did you wear sandals instead of tennis shoes? I that's not a clinical issue that I, yeah, you might get MRSA if you're working in a hospital. That's on you. But, you know, there are things that relate. And I think sometimes that gap and the the divide between those things, we as supervisors reinforce. And I think you need to you get to know the managers and the supervisors of their workplace a little better so they know that they can reach out to you and vice versa.

SPEAKER_01:

Quick pause. If you're ready to lead with confidence in 2026, get on the wait list for my brand new supervisor course. Early birds get bonus tools and my favorite supervision templates. Head to KateWalker Training.com slash early bird to join now. Absolutely. All right, I've got number three. And this one, it's it's interesting because I, you know, we we started out teaching this course in Texas, and so I can only reference Texas rules about this, but so a contract. Let's let's just uh talk about that for a second. If you were going to enter into a business relationship with a person, you would want a contract. And if you were gonna rent an apartment, you sign a lease, you get the idea, right? So why would you start supervision without a contract? And so this is where I'm thinking back to Texas law because or Texas rules for LPC LMFT, and I'm not sure about social work, Ashley, you can let me know, but there's no requirement for a contract. And so that is, you know, one of the things I hear here in Texas. Well, there's no rule that says I have to have a contract. And yet, if a complaint goes before one of our boards here, they will ask, did you have a contract in place? Why? Well, because what we I was talking about earlier, this remediation evaluation, you can't evaluate what you haven't taught or agreed to, right? So if you are going along really smoothly and you say, Oh, wow, you know what, you're failing at this skill. And then in the contract, you never said you'd evaluate them, right? You didn't specifically state, hey, part of this is I will evaluate you. Or talking about what Ashley was talking about earlier with communication. If you never gave them your emergency number or how to contact you in an emergency, know what this happens, right? People get into situations with their supervisee and things happen. And when they go back and say, Well, you know, you said this, well, no, I didn't say this, there's no contract. So even if your state does not require a contract, best practices says yes, you must have a contract. You talk about this is what you can expect from me, your supervisor. Here's what I will expect from you, my supervisee. Here's how to contact me in case of an emergency. If it's a situation where you're allowed to charge for supervision, you write down your rate, just like you would for your client. And you don't change that rate without pulling out the contract again and saying, hey, we need to revisit this rate because I'm doing X, Y, and Z. Well, now you've got the contract that you can both refer to because you're both going to sign it and you're both going to have a conversation about it before you ever enter into that supervision relationship. So the contract lays the foundation, whether your state requires it or your license requires that or not. This is a huge mistake. And if you're listening to my voice right now and you're thinking, oh crap, I don't have a contract, that's okay. Sit your supervisee down and say, hey, activity for today is we are going to come up with a contract. And if you're listening to this and you're a Facebooker, you can actually go to the Texas Supervisor Coalition. If you're a supervisor, we asked for your license because we have to verify these things and the state that you're from, and you can look at our files. I think we've got a couple of contracts in there that you can modify for your practice. And if you're asking me, okay, are these contracts that have been reviewed by a lawyer? No, absolutely not. These are templates. And if you want to take it to a lawyer, you know, and you have a lawyer that specializes in mental health and supervision in particular, great. You knock yourself out, go do that. But using ChatGPT, using one of our templates, just something so that you and your supervisee understand and can talk about the thing that is supervision, and you can revisit and modify if and when things change. So get a contract, do it today.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, agreed. I'm gonna go really nerdy. So, you know, take a deep breath. It's gonna get weird. You need to know your state law. You have to know your state law. If you've never read it, now's a great time. After you finish listening to us, pull up that website, get to know, be friends. I love it. And before I kind of made intimate connections with our rule book in the state of Texas, I was one of those people that I actually complained to the Board of Texas. I said, I think you almost need a law degree to read this thing. It is so complex. There's so many like subchapter this, subchapter that, subchapter, subchapter to the subchapter. It is involved. It is a lot, 140 pages or whatever we're up to now. It is a beast. But if you are doing this work, you better know what the hell you're signing up for. There is a really great section in each of the rule books about what supervision entails, who can do it, how to do it, when to do it, when not to do it, when it ends, etc. It is just imperative. And one of the things, because I currently supervise, I think I'm down to four states that I supervise in. And people go, well, how could you possibly know all of the state laws in those? I don't know every state law in those, but I certainly know the ones that pertain to supervision and clinical practice for social workers. And because I do this for a living, and it's one of the main things I do for a living, I get the free time and the levity and the ability to dive into. And it doesn't mean that you're going to remember everything, but knowing how to search your state statutes, what the laws are coming up. And that's one of the things I think that Kate Walker Training is an expert at is advocating and getting to know the process to input in on the laws, what they have to say, actually advocating for your supervisors and your supervisees that you have under your command, it is just the most important thing. And I think a lot of people just, it's messy and it's long and it's legally, and they don't wanna. And if you don't know, you are putting yourself and your supervisees and ultimately the clients at such risk unnecessarily. And, you know, maybe that same lawyer that was looking over that contract, you can ask, like, what in the heck are they trying to say to me here? I don't know. The more you get to know it, the more it makes sense, the more you get the language, the more you kind of get in that zone, that mind frame to read it and to understand it. Know your law, get to know her, love her.

SPEAKER_01:

And that's one of the things I think that I enjoy as far as when people leave comments that they, you know, the ones that finish our courses, you know, we get all the time. Thank you so much for helping me understand what this job entails and for diving into the rules and helping me see how the rules apply. And, you know, while we won't include a copy of your rules in your, you know, for example, you know, if you're taking the Ohio course, we're not gonna have the Ohio rules sitting there, but we will have in there, go check your rules. Make sure you understand the rules that relate to this license that you say you want to supervise. And so you want to listen to another episode we're doing, and it's hacks, you know, hacks for supervisors. So we've talked about these problems, we've talked about the big mistakes, we've talked about rookie mistakes at another episode. You know, we also know a few tips and tricks to make this job easier and more streamlined so that as you're growing as a supervisor, you know, you get to progress developmentally just like your supervisees. You will feel so good and so supported because you put these systems in place at the very, very beginning. So make sure you check out the Supervision Hacks episode because you're gonna want to hear all the stuff we're going to dish out. Thanks for listening to Badass Therapists Building Practices That Thrive. If you're ready to step into supervision and lead with confidence, the brand new 2026 Supervisor Courses are coming soon, and early birds get first access to bonus tools, templates, and fast track grading. Join the wait list now at KateWalkertraining.comslash earlybird. And if you want ongoing support, CEs, and live coaching, join our Step It Up membership community at KateWalkertraining.com slash step it up. You're not just building a practice, you're building a legacy. I'll see you next week. If you love today's episode, be sure to leave a five-star review. It helps other badass therapists find the show and build practices that thrive. Big thanks to Ridgely Walker for our original fun facts and podcast intro, and to Carl Guyanella for editing this episode and making us sound amazing. See you next week.