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Key takeaways
- Coaching focuses on performance improvement: Coaching is typically a structured, short-term process led by a trained coach. It aims to enhance specific skills, address challenges, and achieve measurable goals, often through regular sessions and feedback.
- Mentoring emphasizes long-term personal and professional growth: Mentoring involves a more experienced individual guiding a less experienced person. The relationship is often informal and long-term, focusing on the mentee’s overall development, career progression, and personal growth.
- Key differences lie in structure and objectives: Coaching is performance-driven with specific outcomes, while mentoring is development-driven, aiming to provide broader guidance and support over time.
- Both approaches offer distinct benefits: Implementing coaching can lead to immediate performance enhancements, whereas mentoring can foster employee engagement, retention, and long-term development.
- Organizations should choose based on specific needs: If the goal is to improve particular skills or performance metrics, coaching is suitable. For nurturing talent and supporting career growth, mentoring is more appropriate.
Coaching and mentoring are commonly used by businesses to enhance employee performance and facilitate smooth transitions into new roles.
By offering coaching and workplace mentoring programs, organizations can help their employees grow and reach their career goals.
According to Harvard Business Review, 90% of employees with a career mentor are happy at work. The Institute of Coaching found that 70% of people who receive coaching report improved work performance and 86% of companies say that they recouped their investment in coaching.
And if you’re worried about the investment it takes to run a mentoring program, consider the fact that the return on investment more than pays itself back in terms of turnover cost savings. There’s a clear connection between mentorship and retention, according to a survey by CNBC and SurveyMonkey which found that 40% of employees without a mentor considered quitting their jobs.
Now the question is, which is the best fit for you based on your needs? In this article, we will break down mentoring vs coaching so you can choose which suits you the best.
What is coaching?
Coaching is often provided to a person on a one-on-one basis by a qualified coach. A knowledgeable coach will be able to provide tools, training, advice, and feedback, generally through a structured program.
According to the International Coaching Federation, coaching is defined as "Partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential."
The main focus of coaching is helping individuals to set and meet their goals, solve specific problems, identify their strengths and weaknesses, and improve their overall performance.
It involves a structured process of inquiry, reflection, and action, providing a safe space for individuals to explore possibilities and gain clarity.
Types of coaching
Executive coaching: Executive coaches help senior leaders with improved decision-making, strategic thinking, and leadership qualities.
Performance coaching: Performance coaches assist their clients in recognizing challenges, creating plans of action, and achieving goals with a focus on better performance and productivity.
Career coaching: Career coaching helps individuals develop specific skills, navigate their professional journey, and set career goals.
Life coaching: These individuals are lifestyle coaches who guide others on how to make life changes for greater happiness and fulfillment.
What is a coach?
Coaches care about an individual's performance in specific activities. Coaches watch you practice specific skills and then identify areas to improve. You’ll incorporate their feedback, practice again, and repeat the process.
The idea of coaches may bring to mind Coach Carter—a real-life basketball coach whose story was featured in a 2005 movie starring Samuel L. Jackson. Coach Carter saw the potential in his players, he saw the behaviors and patterns of thinking that were holding them back, and he would help them change bad habits and become champions.
Coaching gained popularity in the realm of sports. But in the 1980s coaching began entering the business world. Thomas Leonard, a financial planner, saw that his clients were following his financial and life advice. He’d teach them frameworks to organize their lives and by doing so, brought coaching off the court and into people's lives. Thomas made the idea of life coaching a respected profession.
Coach Carter was more than a basketball coach. He was also a mentor because he helped them become better individuals and players.
Coaching can help you to:
- Improve productivity.
- Overcome a problem.
- Stay motivated.
- Set business-related goals and objectives and/or meet these goals.
- Identify your strengths and weaknesses.
Some reasons why you might hire a coach include:
- To make more sales.
- To fill in your knowledge gaps.
- To solve problems.
- To gain advice on how to plan or execute a marketing strategy.
- To get the support of a trained person who can hold you accountable for your performance and decisions.
What is mentoring?
Mentoring involves a nurturing relationship where a more experienced individual, known as the mentor, provides guidance, advice, and support to a less experienced individual, known as the mentee.
The mentor-mentee relationship should be based on mutual trust, respect, and open communication. Mentoring can have a lasting and positive impact on the mentee's career.
Unlike coaching, mentoring is a longer-term, relationship-based, and highly-personalized approach that focuses on the overall career and personal growth of the mentee.
What is a mentor?
A mentor helps their mentees with their personal and professional development. They are more concerned with their mentee's holistic improvement rather than specific skills that can be learned through practice.
Coach Carter, for example, cared about his players and wanted to help them become mature and confident adults as well as great players. He was a role model for them as a mentor should be.
For that reason, a mentor is usually in a more senior position that the mentee wants to grow into. So the mentor's experience is invaluable to the mentee. Their relationship extends beyond finite training and is more of mutually beneficial relationship where they share their diverse experiences with one another for the purpose of mutual learning and development.
In short, mentors can coach their mentees, but they go further and offer them advice and guidance drawn from their own experiences.
It's important to note that a mentor shouldn’t be their direct manager. It could become a conflict of interest if a manager is also a mentor. They have a direct incentive to increase their mentee's performance. What if the mentee is trying to transition out of their current role? Instead, a mentor can help their mentee work towards their goals regardless of how it affects their current position.
A coaching relationship is one-sided. But to build a successful mentoring relationship you need trust, an acknowledgement of each other's goals, and a commitment to helping each other grow. There’s no reason a mentor can’t also benefit from helping their mentee.
What skills are required for coaching?
Coaches may be experts in a certain subject or provide general business and enterprise knowledge.
Because of the broad scope of coaching, clientele can come from a wide range of backgrounds and sectors.
This means that coaches must be able to communicate effectively on multiple levels. Coaches that prove successful are adaptive and insightful.
Coaching includes providing information on how to develop oneself and fulfill goals. In order to determine how a person may get what they need, a certain amount of empathy and flexibility is required.
Coaching is not a 'one size fits all' business solution, and good coaches know how to adapt and adjust their strategy and approach based on their clients' needs and personality traits.
Here are some of the key skills required for coaching:
- Active listening
- Effective communication
- Empathy
- Problem-solving
- Goal-setting
- Time management
- Adaptability
- Patience
- The ability to give practical feedback
What skills are required for mentoring?
Mentors are appointed to monitor and support the mentee. They pass on their own skills and knowledge to mentees in order to help them succeed and overcome certain challenges.
As a mentor, you must supervise your mentee. It is critical to remain professional without micromanaging or becoming overbearing.
The finest mentoring strategy is one that provides a mentee with the information and skills they need to clear the bumps on the road, then steps back to give the mentee space to learn and grow.
At the same time, you should let your mentee know that you are always there if they need you and that you will check in on a regular basis.
Here are some of the key skills required for mentoring:
- Clear communication skills
- Good listener
- Great interpersonal skills
- Avoids micromanaging
- Appreciates feedback
- Empathetic
- Positive attitude
- Relevant experience
Maintaining confidentiality: A key skill for both coaches and mentors
There’s one area where both coaches and mentors need to excel, and that’s in their ability to maintain confidentiality. Coachees or mentees will likely be discussing sensitive topics like personal struggles or career plans outside their company, so they want reassurance that their coach or mentor will not disclose this information to others. Communicating and maintaining the confidentiality of their conversations will help ensure both coaches and mentors create an environment of trust and encourage coachees and mentees to share their problems openly.
What are the similarities between coaching versus mentoring?
Despite the fact that coaching and mentoring may have different goals and use different approaches, the foundation of their similarities focuses on the idea of development.
Through this development, coaching, and mentoring can provide valuable benefits to both the individual and the organization.
Some of their similarities include:
- Coaching and mentoring require self-discipline and awareness.
- Both rely on relationship building (typically one-on-one).
- Coaching and mentoring require empathy, active listening, and the ability to give constructive criticism.
- Successful coaches and mentors are adaptable and intuitive.
- Both coaching and mentoring require a commitment from all parties to succeed (a person cannot be successfully coached or mentored if they are uninterested or lack enthusiasm).
What are the benefits of coaching and mentoring?
Coaching and mentoring provide all sorts of benefits, helping you learn new skills while strengthening the skills you already have.
Here are a few specific examples:
Verbal and non-verbal communication skills
Frequent interaction with your coach or mentor allows you to fine-tune your verbal and non-verbal communication. As a mentee, you’ll learn to articulate your ideas more confidently and adapt your communication style to different audiences and situations.
Active listening skills
Conversations with your coach or mentor rely on active listening. Regularly participating in these types of conversations will help you become more adept at truly hearing and understanding other perspectives, a skill you can bring to all your other professional interactions.
Expanded professional network
Having regular contact with a mentor or coach can help you become more comfortable with people from different levels and disciplines within your company and industry. This can lead you to build professional relationships and connections that can lead to your future career growth.
Increased likelihood of professional advancement
Improving your communication and listening skills helps you get better at your current role, which is already a major benefit. Because good leaders are often defined by their communication and listening skills, though, growing your skills in these areas makes you much better equipped to take on a leadership role. This means that refining your competencies through mentorship helps set you on a path towards career advancement.
Can a coach be a mentor?
Although we can use the terms mentorship and coach interchangeably, there are clear distinctions between the two. Just as Coach Carter wanted more for his players than winning a championship, a coach can transition into the role of a mentor.
Usually, this transition happens after the effective coach has successfully improved the performance of their coachee. When the coach achieves their predetermined goal, thus fulfilling their objective as a coach, their relationship may evolve into mentorship.
The mentee will probably have a deep sense of gratitude toward their coach and all the support they provided. Likewise, the coach may be proud of how far they had progressed together. Now their relationship is more mutually beneficial and something closer to a friendship.
What's the difference between coaching and mentoring?
1. Mentoring is long-term, coaching is time-bound
Mentoring relationships are long-term because they focus more holistically on their career development (something we’ll cover more below). Mentors and mentees will explore different ambitions, questions, and challenges that can evolve as their relationship progresses.
On the other hand, coaching is time-bound and expected to reach specific goals in a set time frame. Coaches will have structured meetings with activities designed to lead their coachee (or student) in a particular direction.
2. Mentoring is non-evaluative, coaching is evaluative
Mentoring is non-evaluative, while coaching is based on measuring performance change, whether through company performance reviews or coaching tests. For this reason, mentors shouldn't be a direct supervisor or manager of the mentee, while coaches are often externally hired specialists or managers that are focusing on specific skill improvement areas.
3. Mentoring is driven by the mentee, coaching is the opposite
When a mentee is part of a mentoring relationship, they are in the driver's seat. They set the goals of the relationship and what they want to work on. They request time with the mentor, and they come to them with the problems they want to solve.
In coaching, the coach or supervisor is driving the agenda for the relationship. This stems from the fact that coaching is performance-related. There’s a specific skill or goal that the coach is an expert on or can provide advice to improve the performance of the coachee. Their guidance never stretches beyond helping the worker develop the skill.
4. Mentoring is highly personalized, coaching is repeatable
In mentoring, a mentee has specific needs and wants to discuss challenges that are not necessarily tied to company-wide, top-down performance initiatives. Mentoring also carries the benefit of building your network by meeting multiple mentors and making new connections. Mentoring in this way is particularly helpful when onboarding new employees.
In coaching, a specific skill gap has been identified by the organization, and one or more coaches are selected to provide a generalized program to make improvements. Content is reused and generalized, and a coach wouldn’t typically be a networking opportunity for a coachee.
5. Mentoring is for holistic development, coaching is for measurable skill improvement
Mentoring is great for tapping into the knowledge, experience, and expertise of someone more senior than yourself. Asking them questions that bring out the lessons they’ve learned throughout their career provides tactical knowledge that is hard to get elsewhere. Tapping into that expertise is invaluable for fast-tracking your development.
But what you’ll learn wasn’t fully clear before you started talking with your mentor. You had to listen as they replayed challenges or defining moments in their career closely. In the process, you can pick out valuable insights for your career. In this way, your development is more holistic and dispersed. Coaching is different.
With coaching, there are predetermined improvements you’re trying to reach. You may want to improve your presentation or negotiation skills. Your coach may ask you to explain your approach to developing these skills and uncover areas where you can try new tactics. Additionally, you may have limiting beliefs that hold you back from developing your negotiation skills, for example. A coach would be invaluable in helping you change your mindset and giving you more confidence to ask for a raise or deliver a powerful presentation.
When a mentor is best for you
Having a mentoring relationship can help you develop new skills in your field. Your mentor can give you access to a larger network in your industry and you can leverage their wealth of experience to talk through problems and find solutions. In your career, having a business mentor to look up to is invaluable in preparing you to become a manager, gain new skills or accelerate your career development.
Exploring the different types of mentoring
Think mentoring sounds like the right fit for your organization? Keep in mind that there’s plenty of variation in this field. Here are a few common types of mentoring to consider.
One-on-one mentoring
This traditional form of mentoring pairs an experienced professional with a less experienced colleague. One-on-one mentoring tends to focus on career growth, with the mentor providing tailored advice and support to help the mentee navigate their career path.
Group mentoring
You might find that there’s more demand than available mentors within your organization. In this case, you can opt for group mentoring, which connects several mentees with one mentor.
Mentoring circles
For those interested in peer-to-peer learning, mentoring circles offer a more collaborative approach. With mentoring circles, small groups of employees gather to share knowledge on topics ranging from professional development to personal interests.
Reverse mentoring
In reverse mentoring, the roles flip, with the younger employee in the teaching seat. This can be a powerful way to help senior staff gain fresh perspectives, especially when it comes to tech trends and newer business practices.
When a coach is best for you
If you’re trying to develop a specific skill, for example, becoming a better presenter, then a business coach who is well versed in presenting is ideal. A coach will be able to identify the specific areas you need to improve your speaking or interpersonal skills that lead to a significant difference in your presenting skills.
For example, a sales coach could shadow a call with a potential customer and coach you on ways to improve your objection handling. You will pick up specific tactics to test out on future calls which will also give you more self-confidence in pitching your product or service. You wouldn’t go to this coach to explore why you want a career in sales, but you would go to them for their expertise in the sales process.
What is right for your organization?
Organizations that are looking at enhancing employee engagement, performance, and culture need to be clear on whether the employees would benefit more from mentorship or coaching.
If an organization wants to improve performance, culture, knowledge transfer, and speed of career development, running a mentorship program is the best option to reach those goals and objectives. In this case, every mentee has different needs and a personal mentorship relationship will accomplish all of these.
If a specific skill gap has been identified by the organization, for example, complaints about new managers or middle management being inexperienced or not up to par, a coaching program might be a better fit to provide a standardized, repeatable training.
Summary: When to use mentoring
Mentoring is needed when:
- Your organization wants to support career development, knowledge transfer, culture, or personal development that is unique to each employees situation
- You are succession planning
- You need to promote diversity in the workplace
- You want mentees to drive the relationships
- You don’t have a vetted curriculum ready to be covered
People who will respond well to mentoring will often be:
- Open to learning
- Willing to take direction
- Curious about new ideas and perspectives
- Committed to personal and professional growth
- Self-reflective and self-aware
Summary: When to use coaching
Coaching is needed when:
- A company is looking to sharpen a specific skill of their employees broadly
- A group of employees needs to become more competent in a certain area
- A new procedure or system is being implemented
People who will respond well to coaching will often be:
- Somewhat confident in their industry but still willing to learn.
- Interested in setting goals.
- Comfortable with having their performance measured or quantified.
- Self-aware or willing to work on understanding themselves and their business better.
Does my organization need a coaching program or a mentoring program?
In a nutshell, irrespective of their differences, it's not an either-or discussion — as both coaching and mentoring work together as part of broader development and engagement needs within an organization.
Whether you opt to invest in a coaching or mentoring program — or a blend of the two — you’ll want to take steps to ensure employees are open to the process and motivated to participate.
Explore how Together reduces the strain of starting programs and helps program administrators easily win over decision-makers — either if they're building a mentoring or coaching program for the first time or expanding on existing programs.
Book a demo to learn more about our mentorship platform
