How Coaching and Mentoring Differ

Although it’s not always easy to explain the difference between coaching and mentoring in the workplace, those familiar with the two roles generally agree, they are not the same thing. When asked to identify differences between the two activities, however, things get a little muddy. One of the reasons for the confusion stems from the fact that a key function of a good mentors is coaching the person being mentored.

Social Enterprise Network Mentoring Champion, Flickr

When we review the various perspectives that exist around coaching and mentoring we see that there is definitely no consensus. Here are just a few ways that coaching and mentoring are seen to differ (or not!).

Research Magazine states:

“…there’s broad consensus that mentoring involves a more experienced colleague using their greater knowledge or understanding to support the development of a more junior or inexperienced employee. Whereas coaches draw out, asking questions to encourage the other to find their own solutions, mentors tend to put in as proactive guides or advisors.”[1]

According to the Institute of Coaching and Mentoring (IC&M) , the two functions are more alike than different with nine of twelve identified characteristics in common and only three that diverge:

  1. While they describe coaching as non-directional, they state that mentors can “use their own experience and knowledge to provide examples and make suggestions.”
  2. They also indicate that coaches can work in any industry or with any topic, while mentors “can only work in an industry or with a topic in which they have knowledge and experience.”
  3. Finally, while the IC&M state that both coaches and mentors use their knowledge and experience to provide examples or make suggestions, they qualify this by stating that a coach is trained to draw answers from a client, “whether the coach understands the answers or not.”

Much like the IC&M, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) perceives more similarities than differences in the two roles, offering the following descriptions of coaching and mentoring:

Coaching targets high performance and improvement at work and usually focuses on specific skills and goals, although it may also have an impact on an individual’s personal attributes (such as social interaction or confidence). The process typically lasts for a relatively short, defined period of time, or forms the basis of an on-going management style.

Mentoring involves the use of the same models and skills of questioning, listening, clarifying and reframing associated with coaching. Traditionally, however, mentoring in the workplace has tended to describe a relationship in which a more experienced colleague uses his or her greater knowledge and understanding of the work or workplace to support the development of a more junior or inexperienced member of staff. One key distinction is that mentoring relationships tend to be longer term than coaching arrangements. [2]

The International Centre for Coaching and Mentoring Studies at Oxford Brookes University seems to agree, describing coaching and mentoring as “two different, but closely linked, approaches to helping people increase their sense of self-direction, self-worth, efficacy and achievement…The main distinction between the two terms is that coaching does not rely necessarily on the specific experience and knowledge of the coach being greater than that of the client.”

Management Mentors, on the other hand, identifies as many as twenty-five differences between coaching and mentoring relationships and offers the following as the “top three” differentiators:[3]

1. Coaching is task oriented. The focus is on concrete issues, such as managing more effectively, speaking more articulately, and learning how to think strategically. This requires a content expert (coach) who is capable of teaching the coachee how to develop these skills.

Mentoring is relationship oriented. It seeks to provide a safe environment where the mentoree shares whatever issues affect his or her professional and personal success. Although specific learning goals or competencies may be used as a basis for creating the relationship, its focus goes beyond these areas to include things, such as work/life balance, self-confidence, self-perception, and how the personal influences the professional.

2. Coaching is short term. A coach can successfully be involved with a coachee for a short period of time, maybe even just a few sessions. The coaching lasts for as long as is needed, depending on the purpose of the coaching relationship.

Mentoring is long term. Mentoring, to be successful, requires time in which both partners can learn about one another and build a climate of trust that creates an environment in which the mentoree can feel secure in sharing the real issues that impact his or her success. Successful mentoring relationships last nine months to a year.

3. Coaching is performance driven. The purpose of coaching is to improve the individual’s performance on the job. This involves either enhancing current skills or acquiring new skills. Once the coachee successfully acquires the skills, the coach is no longer needed.

Mentoring is development driven. Its purpose is to develop the individual not only for the current job, but also for the future. This distinction differentiates the role of the immediate manager and that of the mentor. It also reduces the possibility of creating conflict between the employee’s manager and the mentor.

Coaching and Mentoring: Tthe Receiving End

What about those being coached and mentored? How do they see the two relationships? Do they define the two relationships based on their differences or their similarities?

Unfortunately, little of the available research on coaching and mentoring discusses these two activities from the perspective of those being coached and mentored. A quick straw poll of personal contacts quickly revealed two key differences

  1. Working with a mentor is more self-directed, while a coach typically brings an agenda to the relationship.
  2. A coach also brings more structure and formality to the process, focusing on specific performance issues within a set timeframe, while the mentor relationship is more likely to ebb and flow with what’s going on in the life and work of the individual.

Whether you consider coaching and mentoring to be largely the same, or completely different, one thing is clear: mentoring and coaching in the workplace have been shown to contribute to enhanced performance and career development, increased compensation, upward career mobility, overall career satisfaction and greater self-esteem at work.[4]

 

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[3] Excerpt. Management Mentors. The Differences Between Coaching and Mentoring http://www.management-mentors.com/resources/coaching-mentoring-differences/

[4] Terri A. Scandura. Mentorship and career mobility: An empirical investigation. Journal of Organizational Behavior Volume 13, Issue 2, March 1992

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