Managers support employee development through coaching conversations and constructive feedback. Effective coaching helps employees understand expectations, reflect on their performance, and identify opportunities for improvement. When handled properly, coaching conversations strengthen trust and encourage professional growth. This module introduces the coaching practices managers use to guide employee development and address performance concerns. Learners explore how managers prepare for coaching discussions, provide behavior-based feedback, and navigate conversations that may involve disagreement or emotional tension. Instructional demonstrations illustrate how managers conduct one-on-one meetings using Microsoft Teams, schedule coaching sessions through Outlook, and record discussion notes in OneNote. These tools provide a realistic representation of how managers capture development commitments and follow up on coaching discussions.

Leadership effectiveness depends not only on communication skills but also on a manager’s ability to recognize how emotions and behavior influence team interactions. Managers who demonstrate emotional awareness and adaptability are better equipped to guide discussions, respond to tension, and maintain productive working relationships. This module explores how leadership style and emotional intelligence influence the way managers respond during workplace interactions. Learners examine how emotional signals can affect communication, decision-making, and team dynamics, while exploring how different leadership styles support different situations. Through workplace scenarios and instructional demonstrations conducted through Microsoft Teams, learners observe how managers recognize emotional signals, guide difficult conversations, and support more focused and respectful team interactions. Throughout the module, learners analyze how leadership behavior can influence clarity, alignment, trust, and collaboration within a team.

Managers spend significant time preparing communications such as meeting summaries, status updates, and coaching notes. Generative AI tools can assist with these tasks by drafting messages, summarizing discussions, and organizing notes.This module introduces how AI tools can support common management communication workflows. Learners examine examples where AI systems generate draft emails, summarize Microsoft Teams meetings, and help organize feedback captured during employee conversations. Instructional demonstrations show how managers can use Microsoft Copilot to produce communication drafts and meeting summaries, followed by review and editing to ensure accuracy, appropriate tone, and alignment with organizational expectations.By the end of the module, learners understand how AI tools can assist communication tasks while managers remain responsible for reviewing and approving the final message.