Extension: Coaching & Mentoring

“The essence of coaching is unlocking people’s potential to maximize their own performance.” - Timothy Gallwey

Why This Extension?

This module is a natural progression from your leadership foundations. After learning to lead and manage teams, coaching is the skill that multiplies your impact. Great coaches don’t just give answers - they ask powerful questions that help others discover solutions themselves.

Prerequisites: Phase 3A (Leadership Foundations)

Week 1: The Coaching Mindset

Core Concepts

Coaching vs. Telling: The fundamental shift from being the person with answers to being the person with questions. Telling creates dependency; coaching builds capability.

Stay Curious Longer: Most managers jump to advice-giving within 10 seconds. Great coaches stay in inquiry mode, trusting that the coachee has the resources to find their own path.

The Advice Monster: That urge to jump in with solutions, fix problems, and be helpful is actually counterproductive. It satisfies your ego but doesn’t develop the other person.

This Week’s Reading

📖 The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier (Full book - only 3 hours!)

• Why we default to giving advice
• The 7 essential coaching questions
• How to build a coaching habit in 10 minutes a day

The 7 Essential Questions

Reflection Questions

1. When do you find yourself jumping to advice-giving?
2. What would change if you asked one more question before offering solutions?
3. How might your team’s capability grow if they solved more problems themselves?

Week 2: Deep Coaching Skills

Core Concepts

Active Listening: Listening to understand, not to respond. This means suspending your agenda, noticing what’s NOT being said, and reflecting back what you hear.

Powerful Questions: Questions that create insight, not just information. They’re typically open-ended, forward-focused, and assumptionless.

Holding Space: Creating psychological safety for exploration. This means being comfortable with silence, uncertainty, and emotions.

This Week’s Reading

📖 Co-Active Coaching by Whitworth, Kimsey-House (Chapters 1-5)

• The Co-Active Model
• Listening at three levels
• Asking powerful questions
• The dance of coaching

The Three Levels of Listening

Application Exercise

Practice the 7 questions this week:

1. Start 3 conversations with “What’s on your mind?”
2. Use “And what else?” at least 3 times per conversation
3. Notice when you want to give advice - pause and ask instead

Week 3: Coaching in Practice

Core Concepts

The GROW Model: A structured framework for coaching conversations. Goal → Reality → Options → Will/Way Forward.

Developmental Feedback: Feedback that grows capability, not just corrects behavior. It’s specific, timely, and focused on growth.

Coaching in the Moment: Finding 10-minute windows for coaching in daily interactions, not just formal sessions.

This Week’s Reading

📖 Trillion Dollar Coach by Schmidt, Rosenberg, Eagle (Selected chapters)

• Bill Campbell’s coaching principles
• How coaching scaled at Google, Apple, Intuit
• The role of trust in coaching relationships

The GROW Model

Application Exercise

Use GROW in one conversation this week:

1. Start with Goal: “What would success look like?”
2. Explore Reality: “What have you tried? What’s working?”
3. Generate Options: “What else could you do?”
4. Close with Will: “What’s your first step?”

Week 4: Building a Coaching Culture

Core Concepts

Coaching as Leadership Style: Moving from occasional coaching to coaching as your default mode of leadership.

Peer Coaching: Building coaching capability across teams, not just managers coaching direct reports.

When NOT to Coach: Emergencies, compliance issues, and situations requiring direct instruction. Coaching isn’t always the right tool.

Capstone: Coaching Practice Plan

Create your personal coaching development plan:

1. Current State: When do you coach well? When do you default to telling?
2. Skill Focus: Which of the 7 questions is hardest for you?
3. Practice Plan: Where will you practice this week?
4. Measurement: How will you know you’re improving?

Key Frameworks

Resources

Books

• ⭐⭐⭐ The Coaching Habit (Essential - 3h read)
• ⭐⭐⭐ Co-Active Coaching (Essential - 8h read)
• ⭐⭐ Trillion Dollar Coach (Recommended - 6h)

Free Resources

• ICF (International Coach Federation) - competency framework
• LinkedIn Learning - Coaching Fundamentals course
• Manager Tools podcast - coaching episodes

TED Talks

• Michael Bungay Stanier: “How to Tame Your Advice Monster”

AI Learning Integration

Coaching Practice Prompt

I'm practicing coaching skills from The Coaching Habit.

Act as a direct report who has a work challenge. Present a realistic problem, then let me practice coaching you using the 7 essential questions.

After each of my questions, respond naturally as the coachee would. Then, in [brackets], give me feedback on:
1. How effective was that question?
2. Did I stay curious or slip into advice-giving?
3. What might have been a better question?

Let's practice for 10 exchanges.

Self-Assessment Prompt

I want to assess my coaching habits.

Ask me about 5 recent conversations where I could have coached someone. For each one, ask:
1. What was the situation?
2. What did I actually do?
3. What question could I have asked instead?

After all 5, identify my patterns: When do I coach well? When do I default to telling?

Phase Assessment

Complete the following to demonstrate coaching competency:

1. Quiz: Coaching Concepts (30%)
2. Case Study: Coaching Scenario (70%)
   • Apply coaching frameworks to a realistic workplace situation
   • Demonstrate question-asking rather than advice-giving

I'm studying Coaching & Mentoring (Phase EXT-COACHING of my MBA program).

Act as a Socratic tutor - don't give me direct answers. Instead, ask me questions to help me discover insights about these concepts: Coaching Skills, People Development.

Start by asking what I already know about one of these topics, then guide me deeper with follow-up questions. Challenge my assumptions when appropriate.

After each of my responses, either:
1. Ask a deeper follow-up question
2. Point out a gap in my reasoning
3. Connect my answer to another concept

Let's begin.

Quiz me on Coaching & Mentoring. Ask 10 questions covering: Coaching Skills, People Development.

Rules:
- Mix question types (multiple choice, short answer, scenario-based)
- Start easier, get progressively harder
- After each answer, tell me if I'm right or wrong and explain why
- Keep a running score
- At the end, summarize what I know well vs. need to review

Ask the first question now.

Help me apply the main frameworks from this phase to a real situation in my life or work.

First, ask me to describe a recent challenge or decision I faced.

Then guide me through analyzing it using these frameworks:
- Which framework applies best?
- What would each framework reveal about the situation?
- What would I do differently knowing this?

Don't lecture - ask questions that help me discover the insights myself.

I want to practice case analysis for Coaching & Mentoring.

Give me a short business scenario (2-3 paragraphs) involving Coaching Skills, People Development.

Then ask me:
1. What's the core problem?
2. Which frameworks from Coaching & Mentoring apply?
3. What biases might cloud judgment here?
4. What would you recommend?

After each answer, push back on my reasoning before moving to the next question.

I'm studying Coaching & Mentoring and need to understand these concepts deeply: Coaching Skills, People Development.

For each concept, ask me to explain it in simple terms (as if to a child).

If my explanation is unclear or wrong, don't correct me directly. Instead:
1. Ask clarifying questions
2. Give me a scenario that tests my understanding
3. Help me refine my explanation

The Feynman technique says if you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.