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If you're wondering 'what is the difference between coaching and mentoring?', you're not alone.
Comparing coaching and mentoring can be confusing, because:
- They have a lot in common
- But coaching and mentoring also have distinctive features that are all their own.
Neither does it help that the definitions of each often vary depending on your reference sources.
In fact, one highly-respected reference book on coaching and mentoring by Eric Parsloe and Melville Leedham [1] highlights the many overlaps between coaching and mentoring. They point out that both involve thoughtful, meaningful conversations designed to support personal or professional growth and improve performance.
Keep reading, or follow the links down the page to answer your questions and find the clear differences and similarities between coaching and mentoring.
What is Coaching? | What is Mentoring? | Differences between Coaching and Mentoring | Similarities between Coaching and Mentoring | Benefits of Coaching and Mentoring
What is Coaching?
A coach is an expert in a specific area. This could be business growth, financial support, marketing, sales, social media or other areas where a person may need help to develop their business.
"Coaching is the art of facilitating the performance, learning and development of another." - John Whitmore (2002)
A trained coach helps their coachee identify and tackle their obstacles to success, by sharing proven approaches, methods and solutions. As part of the relationship, the coachee is accountable to their coach for the success of their business or career.
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What is Mentoring?
Mentors are a little different: they have personally experienced some or all of the same situations and challenges as their mentee. The latter therefore benefits from this wisdom as well as a more personal connection than a coach might provide.
"Mentoring is to support and encourage people to manage their own learning in order to maximise their potential, develop their skills, improve their performance and become the person they want to be." - Eric Parsloe, The OCM.
Through sharing their personal expertise, a mentor can provide a clearer road ahead for their mentee, thus saving them from having to go through a steep learning curve and making unnecessary mistakes along the way. As a result, a person with a mentor can develop their business or career faster than one without.
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Differences between coaching and mentoring
The main difference between coaching and mentoring is that coaching focuses on specific skill development and performance improvement, while mentoring fosters personal and professional growth through a long-term, supportive relationship. When looking to differentiate between coaching and mentoring in more detail, although there are not hard and fast rules, the following are some general principles that can be applied:
| Aspect | Coaching | Mentoring |
| Focus | Usually focuses on work-related issues or clearly defined areas to develop such as specific skills, performance improvement, or goal achievement | Focus is broader and more holistic, covering the mentee's development as a person as well as their career |
| Duration | Coach-coachee relationship generally runs for a defined and generally short time interval | Mentor-mentee relationship is more open-ended and is generally designed to last longer |
| Structure | Usually a formally structured program and progress tracking, due to dealing with specific issues | Usually a more informally structured working process, due to dealing with a broader framework |
| Expertise | Coach is trained and certified in coaching techniques, but may not be an expert in the coachee’s field | Mentor is usually more experienced and qualified than their mentee, and so passes on knowledge and direct experience, such as with engineering mentors, who are able to pass on their experience to the next generation of engineers |
| Who sets goals? | Coachee sets their own goals with the coach facilitating self-discovery | Mentor may guide goal-setting based on their experience and the mentee’s needs |
| Advice vs. Questions | Coaches ask probing questions to help the coachee find their own solutions | Mentors often provide direct advice, sharing personal experiences and lessons learned |
| Accountability | Regular check-ins, progress tracking, and goal measurement | Mentee is responsible for their own progress, with the mentor offering guidance rather than accountability |
| Payment | Often a paid service, especially in professional settings | Typically voluntary, with mentors giving time out of goodwill or within a company development programme |
| Confidentiality | High level of confidentiality expected, particularly in executive coaching | Can be informal, though confidentiality should still be respected |
| Context | Often used in corporate training, leadership development, or performance improvement | Common in career progression, leadership nurturing, and knowledge transfer |
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Similarities between Coaching and Mentoring
However, coaching and mentoring also have aspects that are much the same - as proposed by Parsloe and Leedham:
- Both involve meaningful dialogue aimed at unlocking the coachee /mentee's potential and raising their performance
- Both require confidentiality and trust for open conversations
- Both require effective supervision and management alongside useful and appropriate processes in order to have the most positive impact on the mentee
- Both use the provider's questioning, active listening and feedback and communication skills
- Both require the provider to have a good interpersonal skills, and a good working knowledge of organisations and the principles of learning
- Both require clear and understood ground rules, agreements, and protocols
In addition:
- Both involve a trusted relationship where one person guides and supports another.
- Both aim to help the individual grow and develop, whether in skills, confidence, or career advancement.
- Both involve goal-setting and reflection, though the approach differs.
- Both can be one-to-one relationships, though group coaching/mentoring also exists.
- Both can be applied in workplaces, leadership development, and personal growth.
- Both require commitment and effort from both parties to be effective.
Whilst it is helpful to see the similarities and differences between coaching and mentoring, there is clearly also a lot of overlap. In reality, the most effective approach often uses a blend of both, such as with coaching and mentoring in healthcare, where coaching and mentoring are used separately to cover different workforce challenges and inequalities within the healthcare system.
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Benefits of coaching and mentoring
Whether you choose to receive coaching or mentoring, they both offer the following benefits:
Get an outside perspective: see the bigger picture
A person is often too involved in their business or career to see a realistic and balanced view.
The coach or mentor encourages their mentee to view the situation from alternative or broader
perspectives; this enables them to identify strengths, weaknesses and opportunities that they
might have missed but can now address effectively.
Reaching further
Sometimes, we will do things for other people that we wouldn't do for ourselves. Accountability
to a coach or mentor tends to result in improved focus and determination to reach goals.
Achieving greater success
In a good working relationship, a coach or mentor helps their mentee maintain their motivation
and positivity, which in turn further develops the latter's career.
Have a safe space to discuss ideas and problems
A coaching or
mentoring process
ensures that the person's ideas and explanations are listened to
and discussed, which in turn stimulates and challenges their thinking. By encouraging a mentee
to work out their own ideas and solutions, a coach or mentor enables the mentee to make
well-informed decisions at a faster rate than they would by themselves.
Be continually challenged
People can stagnate in their career and lose their drive. Coaches and mentors challenge this in
a positive way: they help people to breathe new life into their careers, and enthuse them with
the dynamism to develop themselves professionally and achieve more advanced goals than before.
A coach or mentor ensure will ensure that their mentee will be continually motivated - not just to do more than before, but to do it more effectively than before.
If you would like to find out more about PLD's mentoring and coaching platforms you can get in touch.
