Coaching Tip: Mentoring and Coaching

Originally Submitted on 4/2/2002.

Introduction

It is generally considered that mentoring is much more directional, and often directive, than coaching. Thus, when one is mentor coaching there are fine lines to be observed.

The Coaching Tip

While a coach accepts the coaching mantra “the client has the answers” and coaches by eliciting the client’s wisdom, in a mentoring situation there is generally a far more directional flow of information. The mentor has already walked the path that the mentee is following, and part of the practice of mentoring involves the sharing of guidance, the dissemination of some of the wisdom that one hopes one has gathered along the way. Clearly this is not what we think of as true coaching, although ideally every session would include both some coaching and some mentoring.

When one is mentor coaching, therefore, it is important to remember that while mentoring one is NOT necessarily modeling coaching. A new coach needs to experience true coaching so that s/he can know what it is, as well as to learn a bit about running the business of coaching from the mentor side of the relationship. It is therefore a good idea for the mentor coach to clarify when s/he has been doing which. At the end of a session, perhaps ask the client to identify when s/he experienced mentoring, and when coaching, so as to help in this clarification. If this is not done, then the new coach may not learn the difference between coaching and mentoring, and may later pass on this misunderstanding to other coaches.

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