A lot of questions have been thrown to the air for quite a while now in relation to what is best, either coaching or mentoring. Thou I am pushing in this website that I can be your mentor for Sante Barley business; we will dwell further of the difference between the 2 (coaching and mentoring), its advantages and disadvantages.
Coaching is not a practice restricted to external experts or providers. Many organizations expect their senior leaders and middle managers to coach their team members to reach higher levels of performance, increased job satisfaction, personal growth, and career development. Business coaching is not the same as mentoring.
Mentoring involves a developmental relationship between a more experienced “mentor” and a less experienced partner, and typically involves sharing of advice. A business coach can act as a mentor given that he or she has adequate expertise and experience. However, mentorship is not a form of business coaching.
Table of Contents
See below list shows the difference between mentoring and coaching:
COACHING | MENTORING |
| Task oriented: taught by content expert. | Relationship oriented: sharing issues affecting mentees professionally and personally. |
| Short-term: depending on the purpose, a coach can be involved for a short time only. | Long-term: building trust that creates a positive environment to share real issues impacting success. |
| Performance driven: improving performance by enhancing / acquiring skills | Development driven: developing the mentee for the future |
| No design phase: coaching can be conducted immediately on any given topic. | Design phase: determining the focus of the relationship that informs the mentoring model. |
Coaching can occur to enhance performance. For example, after a project or task a good coach will ask many questions to assist with learning. A good coach might ask, what were you trying to accomplish? What were the actual results of what the project or task achieved? What caused the gap between what you wanted to achieve and results you achieved? Coaching can assist in understanding the gap between the expected result and the current outcome.
A good coach can help a person think through what should be done next time to improve performance.
My marketing mentor and coach right now says, “If anything is worth doing it’s worth doing poorly to start with.” I love that and it really is the key.
Okay… then how about training… how does it differ between coaching and mentoring?
| Training | Mentoring | Coaching |
| A Trainer possesses skills or information that student’s needed or required. | A mentor is either a senior and experience person conveys wisdom and company/corporate culture. | A coach could be superior, subordinate, or peer. |
| The primary activity of a trainer is the process of transmission of information. | A mentor has traveled or have been in the same path or situation as the mentee. | A coach does not need same background or experiences. |
| The teacher and student relationship is typically temporary and narrow in focus. | A mentor provides and share connections, references, experiences and advise. | A coach enables others to work through and solve their own problems. |
Mentoring is a process for the informal transmission of knowledge, social capital, and the psycho-social support perceived by the recipient as relevant to work, career, or professional development; mentoring entails informal communication, usually face to face and during a sustained period of time, between a person who is perceived to have greater relevant knowledge, wisdom, or experience (the mentor) and a person who is perceived to have less (the protégé)”.
Counseling on the other hand… where did it fits?
Coaching | Counseling | Mentoring | |
| Where expertise resides | Person being coached. | Counselor | Mentor |
| Assumptions about other person | For healthy, well-functioning people who want to take action in order to move ahead in some area of life. | For people who are dealing with a pain, hurt, loss, or challenge and are in need of healing and understanding | For people in need of advice from someone who has had a very similar experience that can be shared and imitated |
| Desired Outcome | Action. | Healing and understanding | Successful application of mentor’s wisdom |
| Time orientation | Present and Future. | Past and Present | Future |
| Skills used | Asking Questions, Listening, Designing Actions. | Asking Questions, listening, diagnosing | Telling, advising |
| Purpose of questions | Used by coach to promote discovery for person being coached. | Used by counselor to diagnose | Used by person being mentored to garner advise |
I’ve heard about Consulting and Therapy, thou the words sounds odd but…
where did the thought process fits?
Process | Mentoring | Consulting | Therapy | Coaching |
| Thought | My experience is…I know how… | I am an expert.This is what you are paying me to tell you. | I will help you heal from the cause. | How can I support your learning?Where would you like to go from here? |
| Statement | This is how I would do it… | This is how to do it.This is how you should do it. | Tell me about your past.What was it you went through? | What have you tried?How has that served/disserved you?What else is possible? |
| Action | Guidance & Advice | Direction, method, technique & information | Probe, psychoanalyze, deep reflection, come to terms. | Explore, experiment, learn new ways of working, thinking, doing, personally and professionally. |
When you join a mentoring program you get ongoing training that answers questions as they come up. Results will help you go in the right direction for your own success because the mentors already understand what does and does not work.
