Leadership Mastery: coaching, ethics and succession

01

From leading a team to growing leaders

In simple words

A good gardener does not pull the plants up to make them grow faster. The gardener gives water, light and support, and the plant does the growing. Coaching a leader is like that: you help them find and do the growing themselves.

Before this course: Leading Teams: culture and change (course 9.4.3). There you built team charters, used the four kinds of fairness, led change and handled underperformance fairly. In course 9.4.2 you practised feedback, delegation and meetings, and learned to label advice as research, company report or tip. Now your job is to grow other leaders, handle hard ethical calls and make sure the team can keep going without you.

Key facts

Coaching, mentoring, managing and consulting are different (working definitions for this course):

Role	Who has the answers?	Typical question
Coach	Mostly the person being coached	"What options do you see?"
Mentor	Shares own experience and advice	"When I faced this, I..."
Manager	Sets goals and judges performance	"Here is what I need by Friday."
Consultant	Brings expert solutions	"I recommend you do this."

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) groups its Core Competencies into four areas: Foundation (ethics, integrity, a curious coaching mindset, confidentiality); Co-Creating the Relationship (trust, safety and clear agreements); Communicating Effectively (active listening, including what is not said); and Cultivating Learning and Growth (turning insight into action, goals and accountability). ICF says the competencies date to 1998 and the current version was introduced in 2025 after a job analysis of over 3,000 coaches.
What the research says. A meta-analysis of 20 studies on executive coaching (Nicolau and colleagues, 2023, Frontiers in Psychology) found larger effects on behaviour than on attitudes or personal characteristics, positive effects on self-efficacy, psychological capital and resilience, and no effect of the number of sessions. An updated meta-analysis of workplace coaching (Cannon-Bowers and colleagues, 2023, Frontiers in Psychology) found results consistent with earlier reviews: coaching is linked to positive organisational outcomes.
Limits: Cannon-Bowers and colleagues note that research on coaching has been limited and that a true science of coaching has not yet been developed. Studies differ in who coaches, how and for how long. Use coaching as a promising practice, not a guaranteed fix.
A leader who coaches their own team members is both coach and judge. Say this openly (Lesson 2).

Step by step

List three people you could help grow as leaders (at work, in a club, a class or a volunteer group).
For each, write one real challenge they face right now.
Decide which role fits each challenge: coach, mentor, manager or consultant. Write why.
Pick one person for coaching in this course. Ask them: "Would you like me to coach you on this for the next month?"
Agree the basics: goal, how often you meet, what stays confidential and its limits.
Check: you have one coaching partner who said yes, one agreed goal and clear confidentiality limits.

Watch on YouTube

The GROW model for coaching: origins and applicationPerformance Consultants International · YouTube · youtube.com

Videos by other creators on YouTube, for reference. They are not made by or affiliated with The Future Market.

LESSON 01From leading a team to growing leaders

LESSON 01 / ANIMATED LESSON / AI VOICE00:00 / 01:05

Voice

Read the video script

[Host] "At expert level, your job changes. You stop being the best player and start growing other leaders."
[Screen: four roles: coach, mentor, manager, consultant] "Know which role you are in. A coach mostly asks. A mentor shares experience. A manager sets goals."
[Text on screen: COACHING CHANGES BEHAVIOUR MOST] "A 2023 review of executive coaching found the biggest effects on behaviour."
[Host] "But the science is still young. Treat coaching as a strong practice, not a magic fix."

Try it now

Write a one-page coaching agreement with one person: their goal, how often you will meet, what stays confidential (and the limits, such as safety or legal issues), and how you will both know it is working.

ClaudeStuck? Copy a ready-made prompt for Claude

Copy this, open Claude, paste it, and Claude will walk you through the lesson step by step.

For a grown-up: Claude is for adults (18+). Copy this, paste it into Claude, and use the answer to explain the lesson to your child.

I'm learning "Leadership Mastery: coaching, ethics and succession" on The Future Market. Lesson 1: "From leading a team to growing leaders".

What the lesson teaches:
- Coaching, mentoring, managing and consulting are different (working definitions for this course):
- Role - Who has the answers? - Typical question
- Coach - Mostly the person being coached - "What options do you see?"
- Mentor - Shares own experience and advice - "When I faced this, I..."
- Manager - Sets goals and judges performance - "Here is what I need by Friday."
- Consultant - Brings expert solutions - "I recommend you do this."
- The International Coaching Federation (ICF) groups its Core Competencies into four areas: Foundation (ethics, integrity, a curious coaching mindset, confidentiality); Co-Creating the Relationship (trust, safety and clear agreements); Communicating Effectively (active listening, including what is not said); and Cultivating Learning and Growth (turning insight into action, goals and accountability). ICF says the competencies date to 1998 and the current version was introduced in 2025 after a job analysis of over 3,000 coaches.

The exercise I'm working on:
Write a one-page coaching agreement with one person: their goal, how often you will meet, what stays confidential (and the limits, such as safety or legal issues), and how you will both know it is working.

I'm stuck. Please:
1. Explain the main idea in plain, simple words with one everyday example.
2. Walk me through the exercise one small step at a time. Ask me what I've done so far before giving the next step.
3. Don't just give me the final answer. Help me do it myself, and check my work when I share it.

I'm a parent helping my child (about 8 years old) with a lesson called "From leading a team to growing leaders" from the course "Leadership Mastery: coaching, ethics and succession".

Here's what the lesson says:
A good gardener does not pull the plants up to make them grow faster. The gardener gives water, light and support, and the plant does the growing. Coaching a leader is like that: you help them find and do the growing themselves.

The activity:
Write a one-page coaching agreement with one person: their goal, how often you will meet, what stays confidential (and the limits, such as safety or legal issues), and how you will both know it is working.

Please explain this so an 8-year-old understands: short sentences, a fun everyday example, and no hard words.
Then give me 3 simple questions I can ask my child to check they understood, and a way to do the activity together, one tiny step at a time.

Open Claude

Sources

International Coaching Federation, ICF Core Competencies: coachingfederation.org/credentialing/coaching-competencies/icf-core-co
Nicolau, A., Candel, O. S., Constantin, T., & Kleingeld, A. (2023), "The effects of executive coaching on behaviors, attitudes, and personal characteristics: a meta-analysis of randomized control trial studies," Frontiers in Psychology 14, 1089797: doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1089797
Cannon-Bowers, J. A., Bowers, C. A., Carlson, C. E., Doherty, S. L., Evans, J., & Hall, J. (2023), "Workplace coaching: a meta-analysis and recommendations for advancing the science of coaching," Frontiers in Psychology 14, 1204166: doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1204166

My notes

I learned this

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