What’s the difference between coaching and mentoring?
Share This Post

On the surface, mentoring and coaching look very similar: they are both interventions dedicated to developing employees, they are both built around a relationship with clearly defined roles, and success as coach or mentor requires many of the same interpersonal and communication skills.

However, while some people may use the terms interchangeably, mentoring and coaching are not actually the same thing. Mentoring and coaching have different purposes and outcomes.

If your company is thinking about setting up a mentoring program, you’ll need to know the differences between mentoring and coaching.

1. The purpose of coaching is primarily to improve performance, while the purpose of mentoring is to support professional and personal development.

This difference in “why” between coaching and mentoring drives many of the other differences, as form follows function.

Typically, an individual will embark on coaching intervention to improve performance in a particular role or task. In contrast, mentoring is focused on the development of the individual, which isn’t necessarily tied to a specific role or task.

This also means that the desired outcomes are different. With coaching, there are likely specific, observable changes that define success. With mentoring, it can be more difficult to pin down specific measurable outcomes, and the definition of success tends to be more broad.

2. Coaching is shorter-term, while mentoring is longer-term.

While a coaching intervention may last only a few weeks, mentoring relationships tend to last a year or longer.

While some coaching relationships may last longer than a few months depending on the goal of the intervention, it’s not typical: they tend to be focused on a narrow, specified goal. On the other hand, mentoring is more open-ended and objectives might be more fluid and less specific. These relationships take time to develop, and some mentoring relationships can last for years or even decades.

3. Mentoring tends to be more informal and ambiguous, while coaching is usually more formal and structured.

Since mentoring is focused on individual development, it tends to be much more relationship-driven.

Mentoring relationships are built on mutual trust, respect and empathy (which is part of the reason they take longer to form effectively). Generally, the mentor and the mentee need to have some kind of rapport for the relationship to be successful.

On the whole, coaching is more transactional. Coaches and their coachees partner to help the coachee grow particular capabilities, and therefore typically more structured and formal when compared to mentoring.

4. Coaching tends to be driven by the coach, while mentoring tends to be driven by the mentee.

Coaches are most often experts in their area of focus. In coaching, the philosophy “you don’t know what you don’t know” reigns.

As a result, coaches tend to be prescriptive and it is the coach that tends to provide the structure for the coaching relationship (although the coach will often consult with the coachee to make sure the intervention meets the coachee’s needs). Highly effective coaches use questioning to bring the coachee along.

However, in a mentoring relationship it’s generally the mentee that’s driving the interactions. Because the relationship is focused on the mentee’s needs, they are typically scheduling meetings and deciding what to discuss rather than the mentor. A mentee is likely to ask most of the questions in a mentoring relationship, while the mentor is typically more reactive and will respond according to the mentee’s needs.

5. A coach is selected based on their subject matter expertise while a mentor is selected for their experience at the organization or in the industry.

A mentor is usually chosen due to their real-life experience that is relevant to the mentee. Most often, they work at the same organization or within the same industry as the mentee.

Mentors are helpful to the mentee because they’ve “walked the walk” and can provide advice and share relevant experiences. However, coaches are more often selected due to their subject matter expertise in the related competencies, and need not have specific experience at a particular organization or industry. In fact, many companies choose to go outside the organization to find a coach.

While sometimes subtle, there are clear differences between mentoring and coaching in terms of its purpose, duration, format, who is driving the relationship forward, and how to select a coach or mentor. It’s important to decide what the goal of a development intervention is before deciding what intervention is most appropriate.

If an organization needs to improve key employees’ competencies or help support employees through a period of change, coaching might be the right intervention. However, if an organization wants to grow its leadership pipeline, increase the motivation and engagement of its staff, and generally build the capabilities of both employees and executives, a mentoring program could be the right choice.