Mastering Business Excellence · Leadership & Strategy

Coaching and Mentoring

Coaching and Mentoring trains managers to run structured growth conversations, build mentoring programs and prove the business impact of both.

Register Now opens this course on the Blue Ocean Academy website in a new tab.

Coaching and Mentoring course
  • Course codeCAM
  • LevelLeadership
  • Learning time30 hours
  • Modules8 modules
  • FormatSelf-paced online
  • CredentialMBE credential

About this course

Why it matters

Many managers know they should develop their people and default instead to telling them what to do. The gap shows up as stalled careers, repeated performance problems and leaders who become the bottleneck for every decision.

The coaching and mentoring discipline gives managers a different set of moves: listening that surfaces the real issue, questions that let the employee find the answer, structured frameworks for the conversation and a mentoring practice that carries career growth across years rather than quarters.

How it runs for your organization

Organizations license it as 30 hours of self-paced online learning on the Blue Ocean learning platform, available on web and mobile, so a cohort of people managers can study between meetings rather than away from the business.

The administrator dashboard shows who has enrolled, how far each manager has progressed and who has completed. Participants can take each module's method into a real conversation with a team member that same week, and those who pass the knowledge checks and practice assessments earn a digital, verifiable MBE credential.

What you will learn

  • Distinguish coaching from mentoring and sponsorship and choose the right approach for each employee
  • Hold coaching conversations built on active listening, open questions and genuine empathy
  • Structure a session with the GROW model, the ACS model and SMART goals
  • Design a mentoring program with defined mentor roles, matching rules and reverse mentoring options
  • Diagnose a performance gap and run a coaching conversation that closes it
  • Coach a whole team by building psychological safety and reading team dynamics first
  • Build a measurement plan that tracks coaching impact and estimates its return on investment
  • Apply advanced coaching modalities, AI assisted tools and ethical judgment in complex cases

Skills you will build

  • Coaching conversations
  • Active listening
  • Question craft
  • Mentoring program design
  • Performance coaching
  • Team coaching
  • Coaching impact measurement
  • Feedback delivery

Who this course is for

It suits any employer that promotes strong performers into people management. Supervisors and team leaders who are new to developing others get a repeatable way to run one to one conversations. Experienced managers and senior managers who are expected to mentor future leaders learn how mentoring differs from coaching and how to set it up formally.

HR professionals and learning and development specialists gain the design knowledge to build a mentoring program and measure whether coaching is working. A cohort drawn from one management layer builds a shared vocabulary fast; a cohort that mixes layers lets mentoring pairs form naturally after the program.

Course outline

Eight modules move from mindset to measurement. The first two establish what separates coaching from mentoring, the mindset a leader-coach needs and the listening, questioning and empathy skills every conversation rests on. Module three adds structure through the GROW and ACS models and SMART goal setting.

Module four turns to mentoring as a career development tool, including reverse mentoring and how to stand up a program. Modules five and six apply coaching to individual performance gaps and then to whole teams. Module seven shows how to measure coaching impact and return, and the closing module covers advanced modalities, technology and ethics.

8 modules · 32 topics

Module 1Foundations of Coaching & Mentoring
  • Coaching vs. Mentoring: Foundations for Growth
  • The Value of Each Approach
  • Adopting the Coaching Mindset
  • Becoming a Leader-Coach
Module 2Coaching Mindset & Skills
  • The Heart of Effective Coaching: Mindset Before Skill
  • Active Listening: The Foundation of Coaching Conversations
  • Powerful Questioning: Unlocking Insight and Growth
  • Empathy: Connecting and Understanding
Module 3Coaching Frameworks in Practice
  • Why Coaching Needs Structure: The Case for Frameworks
  • The GROW Model: Guiding the Coaching Conversation
  • The ACS Model: Balancing Assessment, Challenge, and Support
  • SMART Goals: Turning Intentions into Achievable Objectives
Module 4Mentoring for Career Development
  • What Mentoring Is — and How It Differs from Coaching and Sponsorship
  • Mentor Roles and Styles
  • Reverse Mentoring: Learning Across Generations
  • Building a Mentoring Program
Module 5Performance Coaching Essentials
  • What Performance Coaching Is — and Is Not
  • The Performance Gap and the Coaching Diagnosis
  • Feedback That Fuels Performance
  • The Performance Coaching Conversation
Module 6Leadership Coaching for Teams
  • From Coaching Individuals to Coaching Teams
  • Psychological Safety: The Foundation of a Coaching Culture
  • Diagnosing the Team Before You Coach It
  • The Team Coaching Conversation
Module 7Measuring Coaching Effectiveness
  • Why and What to Measure: From Activity to Impact
  • Designing the Measurement Plan
  • Calculating the Return on Investment of Coaching
  • Isolating the Coaching Effect
Module 8Advanced Coaching Strategies
  • Beyond the Frameworks: Advanced Coaching Modalities
  • Specialization, Niche, and the Economics of Expertise
  • AI, Immersive Technology, and the Augmented Coach
  • Ethics and Complexity in Advanced Practice

Frequently asked questions

Is this suitable for managers who have never coached anyone before?

Yes. The opening modules assume no coaching background and start with the difference between coaching and mentoring, the mindset involved and the core skills of listening, questioning and empathy. Frameworks such as GROW and ACS arrive in module three, once the basics are in place, so a first time people manager can follow the sequence from the start.

How does the program treat mentoring differently from coaching?

Module four is devoted to mentoring. It separates mentoring from coaching and from sponsorship, describes the roles and styles a mentor can adopt, introduces reverse mentoring across generations and walks through how to build a mentoring program inside a company. Participants leave able to decide which relationship a given employee needs and how to structure it.

Can we use it to improve underperformance conversations, not just development?

That is the focus of module five. It defines performance coaching, shows how to diagnose the gap between expected and actual results before reacting, and sets out a conversation structure that addresses the issue while keeping the employee engaged. Managers who dread these discussions get a method they can rehearse and reuse.

Will our L&D team be able to show that coaching works?

Module seven exists for that question. It moves measurement from activity counts to impact, helps participants design a measurement plan, covers how to calculate the return on investment of coaching and discusses how to isolate the coaching effect from other influences on performance. The same thinking applies to internal coaching programs and external coaching spend.

Does it address coaching teams as well as individuals?

Module six moves from the one to one setting to the team. It covers psychological safety as the precondition for a coaching culture, how to diagnose a team before intervening and how to run a team coaching conversation. Department heads who inherit a team with low trust will find the diagnostic approach especially useful.

How is it delivered and what does completion earn?

Everything is self-paced online on the Blue Ocean learning platform, 30 hours of content across web and mobile, with no live sessions to schedule. On your side, the administrator dashboard lists enrollment, progress and completion for every manager in the cohort. Participants who pass the knowledge checks and practice assessments receive a digital, verifiable MBE credential under the Mastering Business Excellence series.

How do individual learners register for this course?

Use the Register Now button on this page. It opens Coaching and Mentoring on the Blue Ocean Academy website, where individual learners can enroll directly.

How does a corporate license for this course work?

Your organization licenses seats for a cohort or a whole team. Participants study the self-paced modules on the Blue Ocean learning platform, on web or mobile, and your administrator follows enrollment, progress and completion on a dashboard.

Can we start with a pilot cohort before a wider rollout?

Yes. A pilot cohort in one department is a practical first step. Use the corporate license form, and a program advisor will map the relevant courses and license options to your teams.

Ready to get started?

Request a corporate license for your people managers, or ask about a pilot cohort with one department before rolling Coaching and Mentoring out company wide.

Register Now opens this course on the Blue Ocean Academy website in a new tab.

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