Mentoring Styles: 7 Types & When to Use Them

One of the best ways to upskill your employees and prepare them for the future is to pair them up with senior employees in a company mentoring program.

But, when it comes to how to structure a mentorship program, you have to consider different types of learners, mentors, and other factors that make your company unique.

This article explores seven distinct mentoring styles, each suited to different needs and settings. From the focused drive of coaching to the empowering push of sponsorship, we delve into what makes each style unique. Let’s begin.

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What are mentoring styles?

Mentoring styles are simply the different approaches mentors can take to guide and support their mentees.

Does that mean there’s a single best mentorship style a company can adopt for success? Sadly, no! The most effective approach will depend on various factors, including:

• A mentee's needs
• The mentor's expertise
• Organizational needs

Mentorship styles come in all shapes and sizes. A formal mentoring program, for example, is something more structured and guided—like a one on one mentorship—whereas informal mentoring focuses on more organic or peer learning. However, there are many types of mentors as well who all bring their own distinct styles.

7 types of mentoring styles

In this section, we’ll highlight seven mentorship styles that account for diverse mentoring needs, modern workplace settings, encompass various structures, and cater to different goals. Many of these styles can be customized to support career development programs. For each type, you’ll also find benefits, downsides, and the best way to use a specific style.

1. Coaching

• Involves structured sessions to enhance specific employee competencies.
• The mentor provides guidance, feedback, and encouragement.

Coaching is one of the many mentoring styles that involves a mentor guiding a mentee through challenges, providing feedback, and helping set and achieve specific goals and skill competencies. This mentorship style doesn’t necessarily need to involve a senior mentor and junior mentee either. Peer coaching is just one of the ways you can tailor this mentoring style to your company and employee needs.

• Benefits – Enhances specific skills, improves performance, and encourages goal achievement.
• Disadvantages – May require significant time and effort from both mentor and mentee.
• Best For/When – Skill development, goal-oriented tasks, and overcoming specific challenges.

For example, if someone is struggling with time management and prioritization. A coaching mentor could work to identify specific challenges and set achievable goals for effective time management.

🤝 What is the difference between a coach and mentor?

2. Sponsorship

Sponsorship programs involve a senior mentor actively advocating for and promoting the career advancement of the mentee. It’s a way for mentors to help their mentees with internal networking and could become part of an internal mobility program.

• Benefits – Opens doors to opportunities, accelerates career growth, and provides access to influential networks.
• Disadvantages – Relies on the sponsor's influence and commitment.
• Best For/When – Career advancement, leadership development, and navigating organizational politics.

For example, a senior executive can sponsor a junior by actively recommending them for a leadership development program, connecting them with influential colleagues, and advocating for their participation in high-profile projects.

3. Role modeling

Role modeling involves a mentor setting an example by demonstrating desired behaviors and skills for the mentee to emulate. This mentorship style usually takes on the form of a job shadowing program, where a mentee observes their mentor performing their day-to-day tasks or specific skills.

• Benefits – Provides a tangible example for skill development, decision-making, and leadership.
• Disadvantages – Depends on the mentee's ability to observe and interpret the mentoring.
• Best For/When – Leadership development, cultural integration, upskilling and reskilling, and interpersonal skills.

For example, a new team leader admires the leadership style of a senior manager. They observe and emulate the senior's communication techniques, decision-making process, and team-building strategies to enhance their own leadership skills.

🤝 Handbook: How To Be a Great Mentee

4. Laissez-Faire

One of the rare mentoring styles where the mentee takes the lead in their development with occasional guidance from the mentor.

• Benefits – Encourages independence and self-directed learning for the mentee.
• Disadvantages – Depends on the self-motivation of the mentee.
• Best For/When – Self-directed learners, experienced professionals, and those with specific development goals. 

For example, a seasoned professional can guide their mentee by providing resources and occasional check-ins, but the mentee is mostly in control of their own development.

5. Facilitative

Facilitative mentor styles involve guiding the mentee through facilitated discussions, helping them explore and discover solutions.

• Benefits – Encourages critical thinking, problem-solving, and self-discovery.
• Disadvantages – Requires effective facilitation skills from the mentor.
• Best For/When – Exploring solutions, team culture and collaboration, and critical thinking development.

For example, a project manager facing a challenging team dynamic can ask their mentor to guide them through open-ended questions and help them explore different solutions to the problem.

🤝 Handbook: How To Be a Great Mentor

6. Technical

Technical mentoring involves a mentor providing hands-on guidance, sharing industry best practices, and recommending relevant training programs.

• Benefits – Accelerates technical skill development and expertise.
• Disadvantages – May not address broader leadership development topics or soft skills.
• Best For/When – Specialized technical roles, industry-specific knowledge, and skill mastery.

For example, an IT professional who wants to specialize in cybersecurity can choose a mentor who’s an experienced cybersecurity expert to accelerate their development.

7. Holistic mentoring

Holistic mentoring takes a comprehensive approach, addressing both professional and personal aspects of the mentee's life.

• Benefits – Supports overall well-being, work-life balance, and personal development.
• Disadvantages – Requires a mentor skilled in both professional and personal guidance.
• Best For/When – Individuals dealing with both professional and personal challenges, seeking work-life balance, and personal development. 

For example, a mid-level manager can get guidance from their mentor for their professional development goals and personal well-being. In this case the mentor addresses leadership and technical skills as well as stress management and work-life balance.

As you can see, a mentee’s situation and organizational needs both decide which type of mentoring will be the best in a case. We recommend companies provide a mix of mentoring styles for a well-rounded mentoring program.

🤝 8 Types of mentors and their role in the workplace

Benefits of different mentoring styles 

As you can see, a mentee’s situation and organizational needs both decide which types of mentoring styles will be the best fit for your company. We recommend companies provide a mix of mentoring styles for a well-rounded mentoring program.

A one-size-fits-all approach to mentoring rarely thrives. Instead, your company should embrace a spectrum of mentoring styles to get the most out of mentorship programs in the workplace.

Here are some reasons why:

1. Diverse needs – Different employees have different learning needs and preferences. Offering a variety ensures everyone, regardless of background or personality, can find the right support.
2. Inclusive culture – Recognizing and embracing different mentoring styles allows organizations to cultivate a more inclusive culture.
3. Enhanced personalization – Mentees can access mentors with specific expertise, mentoring models, or even similar life experiences, leading to more impactful and relevant guidance.
4. Engagement and retention boost – Employees who feel supported and encouraged through personalized mentorship are more engaged and invested. It translates to reduced turnover.
5. Innovation and creativity – Different mentor styles will bring various viewpoints and approaches to the table. For instance, coaching encourages out-of-the-box thinking while facilitative style results in collaborative problem-solving. The outcome is innovation, continuous learning, and growth.

For example, Cisco has a reverse mentoring program where younger employees mentor senior leaders on technology and social media trends. As a result of such mentor-mentee relationships, the leadership stays up to date.

Crystal Black, Sr. L&D Specialist at AAA, launched a Reverse Mentorship Program at AAA and found success.

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🤝 Mentor Matching: How to Make Career-Changing Pairings

Identifying organizational pain points in mentorship styles

Sometimes, you may struggle to find the right mentorship style that suits your organization’s needs. If you’ve tried out a few, it may not be the mentoring style that’s the issue. The most common issues include:

1. Inconsistencies in commitment
2. Weak administrator or leadership support
3. Mismatched mentors and mentees

Inconsistencies in commitment by either mentor or mentee, lack of support from administrators, or just plain bad matches can have far-reaching effects on your program and your company as a whole.

1. Demotivation and disengagement

A lack of consistent support and guidance can leave mentees feeling overlooked and frustrated, creating a gap between the promise of mentorship and the reality they experience. This disconnect not only dampens motivation but also erodes their sense of belonging within the organization.

When mentorship is haphazard or neglectful, valuable talent goes under developed and under utilized, stalling their growth and possibly encouraging them to leave your company.

2. Hampered development

Sometimes, when a mentorship program lacks structure or support, it interferes with employee growth and development. They may miss out on crucial opportunities, broadening existing skill gaps you’re working so hard to close.

While strong mentorship fosters confidence and empowers mentees to succeed, inconsistent guidance can have the opposite effect—possibly leaving them feeling uncertain about their abilities and career direction. That uncertainty leads them to taking fewer positive risks and behaving more reactively than proactively in their roles.

3. Erosion of trust and culture

Mentorship programs represent a powerful commitment from your company to your employees—a promise to invest in their growth and success. When these commitments fall short, employees could lose faith and begin questioning your company’s dedication to them.

Some employees may start to feel neglected or as if they’re being treated unfairly, which will only undermine your workplace culture.

💡 Why do mentoring programs fail?

Tips for tailoring mentoring styles to organizational needs

We’ve seen how failed mentoring programs can wreck workplace culture. So, what should an organization do to prevent that from happening? 

1. Assess needs — A good idea would be to assess organizational and employee needs and then match suitable mentoring styles to them. For instance, fast paced industries that demand innovation can opt for facilitative styles while coaching would be better for companies requiring quick leveling up of skills.
2. Offer a variety — Companies should also consider offering a variety of programs to employees to reach mentoring goals rather than enforcing a one-size-fits-all approach. Whether they’re formal, peer mentoring, or reverse, offering different mentoring styles empower employees. They can then choose the style that best suits them.
3. Support mentors — And, sure it’s great to focus on mentees, but sometimes, it’s the mentors who need attention. By creating some kind of mentor training program, your organization can widen the mentoring styles you can implement. Some key mentoring skills that can use sprucing up include: Active listening, communication, and constructive feedback.
4. Consider diverse mentee needs —Encourage mentors to be culturally sensitive and study different learning styles and preferences. The stronger trust and rapport they can build across diverse backgrounds, the maximum impact of the mentoring program will be.
5. Leverage tech — Finally, leverage tech to create a flexible and adaptable mentorship program that will evolve with the organization. Online tools and platforms that facilitate matching, communication, and progress tracking, like Together, will make it easier to provide tailored support for a personalized experience for each individual. It will also let a company monitor progress and tweak programs for even better results.

Tailoring your mentorship styles: An example

A fast-growing tech giant, known for its innovative culture, is facing a challenge—sustaining their rapid growth while making sure their employees are supported, engaged, and growing with the company. Their existing mentoring program is a large, one-size-fits-all program that doesn’t work for all employees. 

How can this organization use the tips mentioned above to come up with a successful mentoring program?

1. By mapping needs to styles, the company identified they needed a style that encompasses both rapid skill development (coaching) and out-of-the-box thinking (facilitative style).
2. Instead of one program, they went for three. The first was formal and directive for new hires requiring specific skill development. The second one was peer-to-peer, facilitative style for senior teams with a focus on brainstorming and collaborative problem-solving. The final one was for reverse mentoring.
3. On the mentor side, the tech company set up online training modules on diverse learning styles, effective communication, and cultural sensitivity.
4. They partnered with ERGs to encourage cross-cultural mentoring relationships and address specific needs of diverse groups.
5. The tech they used helped them track progress, gather feedback, and identify areas for improvement. After brief readjustment of the program durations, matching criteria, and mentor training focus, they were able to improve the results.

Following these steps has the potential to help this company boost innovation, enhance engagement and retention, and close key technical skill gaps.

Figuring out mentoring styles and their uses

It’s clear there’s more than one way to mentor employees. One thing we hope you take away from this article is the necessity for a nuanced, customized approach when choosing mentoring styles. 

Getting mentoring programs off the ground is just the beginning. Your company will need ways of managing the different programs and tracking their mentees’ progress.

Together’s mentorship platform is a flexible tool that can accommodate any mentoring styles. Whether you need help with mentor matching, content and resource management, a mentoring tracking system, or anything else, Together can take a lot of the burden off your shoulders.It simplifies the whole process from start to finish, including registration, pairing, feedback collection, and reporting.  Plus, it's scalable to fit any size company.

Learn how Together can help you launch programs using any mentorship style—book a demo today!