Coaching vs Mentoring: what’s the difference?
We are often asked this. So as an accredited coach and mentor, we asked Lucy Unger to set the record straight.
Coaching and mentoring are both acknowledged and increasingly popular methods of individual learning and development. They are typically (but not always) conducted in-house within an organisational context and are seen as benefiting both the individual and the employer. But is there that much difference between the two?
In short, yes.
Coaching can be defined as a powerful collaboration between two people designed to move one person forward in their work or private life. It is a recognised, developmental, collaborative learning technique seeking to transfer skills and knowledge to the coachee by enabling them to recognise, set meaningful goals for and then develop the insight and skills needed to improve both professional and personal aspects of their lives.
Revered coaching psychologist Dr Anthony Grant sums it up: “Coaching is a collaborative, solution-focused, results-oriented and systematic process in which the Coach facilitates the enhancement in work performance, life experience, self-directed learning and personal growth.”.
Whereas coaching relies on ‘pull’ techniques (based on the going-in stance of self-belief and self-discovery), where facilitation is required to help the client solve their own problems, mentoring starts from the point of the mentor distilling their own experience, knowledge and skills to help solve someone’s problems for them.
Much-published professors Megginson and Clutterbuck (1998) describe mentoring as “offline help by one person to another in making significant transitions in knowledge, work or thinking”.
Therefore the differences between the two processes include:
coaching uses non-directive skills and internal learning to increase the insight both personal and contextual within the organisation and mentoring focuses on directive skills
in a coaching relationship it is unnecessary to hold a detailed organisational understanding whereas this would be essential in a mentoring relationship
similarly a mentor would need to have more experience in an area relevant to that client’s needs whereas a coach does not in order to facilitate learning
There are however similarities - both focus on supporting clients to unlock future potential and seek transformational change, skill development and preparing clients for career progress.
In addition both rely on:
facilitation: finely tuned interpersonal skills, rapport/trust building and intuition
collaboration
well-developed listening and summarising techniques
the client being committed to taking responsibility for change and altering behaviour
One final thought: mentoring could also be viewed as a subset of coaching as well as a stand-alone development and learning technique. As a side bar to coaching, a coach asking “may I offer you a suggestion?” or “my experience has been…” can often unlock learning and help move the developmental process forward if correctly signposted and agreed to by the coachee. The two practices therefore, while being distinctly different, can also be integrated.
You can read Lucy’s bio here.
