Coach, Mentor, Role Model, Supporter, Guide... do these words ring a bell? Being a coach involves being able to draw from several disciplines. Coaching is based on a partnership that involves giving both support and challenging opportunities to employees. Mentorship is a related skill that is often a part of coaching. It’s about being a guide, offering wisdom and advice when it is needed.

Knowing how and when to coach (and when to use other tools, like mentoring) is an essential skill that can benefit both you and your organization.

If you think of your role as a leader in the workplace (or perhaps you are preparing for a leadership role), is there someone who is coaching or mentoring you? Some people shy away from help, and yet the riches of knowledge that people have to share is hard to measure.

In this session, you’ll learn the subtle differences of coaching and mentorship, and work on some definitions.

We often ask learners to do some thinking and perhaps a little work before learning begins in order to open your mind to the topic, and to think about what you would like to learn.

In this session, we’ll review your thoughts from the pre-assignment, and have a look at your strengths and opportunities as a coach.

Is communication a strength for you? If it is, great! If not, it’s one of the things that you will probably be keen to learn. In fact, we can probably all learn a little more about communication.

In this session, we’ll discuss communication skills, and what we can do to improve, especially in terms of listening.

The more open you are to applying a range of communication skills, and the more approachable you are to your staff, the better you can become as a coach. Really, it’s about a two-way conversation.

In this session, you’ll learn about critical coaching skills, what they are, and how they apply to your coaching skills.

Are your goals written down? What are the things that you dream of? How do you turn your vision into a plan of action so that you achieve what you want? Sometimes the best ways to get to work on our own goals is to help someone else with theirs.

In this session, you’ll see a direct application of SPIRIT goals to your work as a coach, and as a way of getting tangible results.

Everyone learns in their own way. If you think back to the last meeting you were at, did you notice the different types of learning attitudes that are demonstrated? Some of us are watching people’s faces and visuals, others are listening with forward body positions, and some are taking notes.

In this session, you’ll get a quick look at people’s learning styles and the principles of adult learning, both helpful aspects to your coaching toolkit.

Often, we envision people who want to be coached and offer no resistance to new ideas or to change. Of course, that’s not realistic, especially if you happen to work in a place where change is rapid, or perhaps the changes that the organization wants are hard to get used to.

In this session, you’ll consider a very helpful coaching tool for resistance: the benefits and consequences matrix.

Bringing some of what you’ve learned together means that you can speak about coaching in very concrete terms. Do you have some favorite aspects to coaching? What about some areas that need developing?

In this session, you’ll complete an activity to link coaching skills to their meaning, giving you a comprehensive list of coaching skills.

Putting things into practice is easier when we have a model that we can review, modify for our own purposes, and then apply whenever it’s practical to do so. This model is based on several tools that are common in coaching circles.

In this session, you’ll review a coaching model that reflects common types of coaching being done today. You’ll also consider what the key characteristics are that make it successful.

Feedback can be easier to give than it is to receive. As a coach you are often giving feedback, but we encourage you to check in with your protégé from time to time, and to conduct 360 degree reviews to see how you are doing as a coach.

In this session, you’ll read about giving and receiving feedback, an essential aspect of the leader’s coaching toolkit.

Not every coaching session is going to be ideal, so the coach should ask questions of themselves about their approach, their receptivity to what the protégé really needs, and the effectiveness of their coaching.

In this session, you’ll learn about some coaching problems and what you can do to make your sessions more effective.

Now that you have completed this course on Coaching and Mentoring, how will you use the things you have learned? Creating a personal action plan can help you to stay on track, and on target. When you take responsibility for yourself and your results, you get things done.

In this session, you will be asked questions to help you plan your short-term and long-term goals. This final exercise is a way for you to synthesize the learning that you have done, and to put it into practice.

Congratulations! You have completed the course "Coaching and Mentoring."

We began this course with a look at what coaching and mentoring are. We also introduced the five most critical skills that coaches and mentors need. Then, we reviewed your pre-assignment to help you identify your coaching strengths and weaknesses.

We then moved on to the five key coaching skills. We started with interpersonal skills, including communication, probing, and active listening. Then, we reviewed the other four skills: helping, mentoring, teaching, and challenging.

The next part of the course shared some tools that we can use when coaching, including learning styles, adult learning principles, and the benefits/consequence matrix. We also looked at some skills to support these tools, including giving effective feedback. We wrapped things up with a look at a coaching model and some common coaching problems.

You should now feel ready to coach and mentor others towards success.