2.1 Differences and similarities
You'll now look in more detail at the differences and similarities between mentoring and coaching.
Differences
Mundey (2023) highlights several key differences between coaching and mentoring, including:
- Voluntary vs paid – typically a coach is paid while a mentor is a volunteer.
- Long-term vs short-term – generally, mentoring relationships last much longer than coaching ones, sometimes for a lifetime.
- Personal experience vs general advice – a mentor will share more of their personal experience in order to support and develop their mentee, whereas a coach uses a more generalised approach based on their training and knowledge of the coaching process.
Clutterbuck (2014, p.11) describes some of the key differences between traditional coaching and mentoring in a useful table:
| Traditional coaching | Mentoring |
|---|---|
| Concerned with task | Concerned with implications beyond the task |
| Focuses on skills and performance | Focuses on capability and potential |
| Agenda set by, or with, the coach | Agenda set by the learner |
| Typically addresses a short-term need | Typically a longer-term relationship |
Similarities
While there are clearly differences in the nature of the relationship, there are many similarities in the skills, tools and approaches a mentor or coach uses.
Drawing from the research of Zeus and Skiffington, Connor and Pokora (2007, Figure 1.2, p. 12) present a table that summarises the similarities between coaching and mentoring in a work context. They conclude that both:
- require well-developed interpersonal skills
- require the ability to generate trust, support commitment, and generate new actions through listening and speaking skills
- shorten the learning curve
- aim for the individual to improve his or her performance and be more productive
- encourage the individual to stretch, but can provide support if the person falters or gets out of his or her depth
- provide support without removing responsibility
- require a degree of organisational know-how
- focus on learning and development to enhance skills and competencies
- stimulate personal growth to develop new expertise
- can function as a career guide to review career goals and identify values, vision and career strengths
- are role models.
Van Nieuwerburgh (2020, p. 7) argues that ‘the terminology is unimportant as long as it is recognised that both approaches can support people to develop their skills and performance’.
In future weeks, you’ll consider some of the practical ways in which mentoring and coaching can support your career development, but first you’ll reflect on your own experience of either receiving or providing mentoring and/or coaching.