Coaching vs Mentoring

"I think I need help, I think I need some guidance, but I have no idea what that looks like." This is, more or less, how most of the conversations I have about coaching and mentoring start. In recent years the focus on mentoring and coaching has been increasing continuously, but people are struggling to understand the differences, and even when they do, the interpretation of either approach is at times erroneous. In this post I am going through what each one is, how each one runs, where mentoring can go wrong, what both ask of you, and how to choose.

Mentoring vs coaching

The word mentor comes from Homer's Odyssey. When Odysseus leaves for Troy, he puts his old friend Mentor in charge of his household and his son, Telemachus; years later, the goddess Athena takes Mentor's form to guide Telemachus as he sets out to find news of his father. So the first mentor was someone older and wiser who knew the road, and, at least part of the time, a goddess was speaking through him 🙂

Mentoring is, therefore, an advice-based relationship. The mentor extrapolates from past experiences and attempts to put themselves into the mentee's shoes, so they can offer very specific advice and explicit solutions to existing challenges / problems. It is also a two-way relationship, and the mentor has the opportunity to learn a lot from (1) the mentee and (2) "walking the talk", i.e., their self-accountability increases.

Coaching, in this case professional / executive coaching, is more of a guided self-discovery for the coachee, and it is much more open-ended. It is a lot less about advice: the coachee is guided to navigate specific challenges through self-discovery, increased self and system awareness, and a flexible mindset. The focus is strongly placed on the coachee's needs; this does not mean that the coach cannot learn, but the relationship exists for the coachee.

How each one runs

Coaching is usually a fixed-term process, for example 6-8 sessions during a 6-month period, though the numbers are not fixed, with an agreed-upon "contract": the coachee agrees to put the necessary effort towards the agreed-upon goals, with one coach at a time. It focuses on deep changes in self-awareness, self-management and mindset, and such changes take time to internalize, hence it is best to work on a small batch of things per period, take a gap, and then reconnect for the next batch.

I have been on the receiving end of executive coaching for the past eight years, across different companies and different types and styles of coaching. What changed for me was a progression: from self-awareness, to self-management, to managing others and situations, and understanding yourself is the most critical step of all. I did take breaks in between the sessions, and even in between the programs, and that is why I advise in favor of them: when you are under pressure, it is difficult to internalize the lessons and to get to the bottom of each item you learned about yourself. I still keep going, and from time to time I take a break.

Mentoring, on the other hand, does not have a pre-determined duration (note: several corporate and non-profit mentoring programs are time-bound to 6 or 12 months for practical reasons), and the two can choose freely how often to meet. Because the advice is provided directly, the internalization is much shorter, which is why the relationship can last for years without major breaks. It is also ok, and I would say recommended, to have more than one mentor, because different mentors can help with different challenges and provide different perspectives.

Where mentoring can go wrong

Mentoring is the more common of the two and, in my experience, it is usually between non-trained participants. This makes it much easier to start than coaching, but it hides some risks, in particular for the mentee (note: coaching can go wrong too, most often when it is mistaken for therapy; the two are not the same, and it is important to be very clear about that from the start).

1. 1.

   Values and goals. We cannot expect two people to have the same core values (note: a good reference is the VIA survey of character strengths), or the same goals, and not understanding the misalignment can lead to advice that is not useful, and at times problematic, for the mentee. Hence, it is important to discuss both at the beginning of the relationship.

   I have a very clear example from my own career, and I have noticed others fall into the same trap. At some point things were going pretty well, and since the very beginning my goal was aligned with my value: doing good work that I enjoyed doing. The people giving me advice, however, were focused on the outcome of getting promoted and moving to higher levels within the organization. The problem is that this changes the lens through which you see the situation, and it distorts reality: instead of truly enjoying what you do and figuring out what you don't enjoy, you start focusing on what will move you to the next level. In my opinion, it is difficult to move to the next level if you don't like what you are doing.

2. 2.

   Backgrounds. Mentoring is based heavily on the prior experience of the mentor, but it is unlikely for the two to have identical experiences in terms of companies, people involved, technical details, timelines, etc. A situation may look identical from an outcome perspective, while the root causes are very different.

   Different companies have very different leveling guidelines, role expectations and org design principles. At one company a Director is expected to be highly hands-on on a daily basis (more common in technology companies), while at another a Director is purely a high-level manager with little or no hands-on exposure or expectations. The same holds for individual contributor (IC) roles: some companies expect them to be highly specialized, others expect them to be generalists. I have had cases where people wanted guidance, either as managers or as ICs, and it was very important to understand what was expected of their role. Other mentors, who had seen only one type of company, jumped immediately to conclusions about how these people should operate, and ignored the differences between their backgrounds.

3. 3.

   Passing on feelings. The mentor may unknowingly project their own feelings onto the mentee, in a way that gives the mentee the wrong impression about their own situation. Mentors are usually a few levels above their mentees, in the same organization or a different one, and they have a lot more visibility into specific situations, e.g., culture, org structure, hiring, etc. Hence, it is easy for a mentor to express their own feelings about the organization, and for the mentee to start having similar feelings about it.

   I have seen this happen, and I have caught myself in it as a mentor. At one point I had very high visibility into the problems and challenges an organization was facing, and I was highly displeased with how things were going, while the person (mentee) across the table from me was very inspired and excited about the work they were doing. Transferring my negative feelings to them would have been unfair, so I had to be very careful: answer their questions objectively, give my perspective on the situation, and make it clear that this was just my perspective, not theirs.

What it asks of you

It may seem weird, but both mentoring and coaching require effort from the mentee and the coachee, not only from the mentor and the coach: bring the topics that are top of mind, explore them end-to-end rather than settle for two-sentence advice, and do the "homework" in between the sessions.

Recently, a few people came to me very prepared. They came in to ask for help, and they were open; some of them did not have any issues at work, others were pretty challenged, but all of them knew it was going to take some time, and they came with an open and growth mindset. On the other hand, one person approached it as if I was going to give them the answer on the spot, in 20 minutes, and help them get the role they wanted. That is not how it works: sometimes it takes several meetings, and many weeks or months, to figure out what you want and what improvements or changes you have to make. Hence, in my opinion, the preparation that matters most is mental, i.e., the right expectations, more than a list of topics or knowing the difference between mentoring and coaching.

How to choose

So, how do you know which one you need? In my experience, most people do not, and that is fine. What has happened so far, 100% of the time, is that I have a chat with the person to understand what their needs are, and then I give them different options: maybe the option is coaching, maybe it is mentoring, maybe it is a bit of both. In practice, what I offer is a mix of the two: people come to me because of my overall experience, and often expertise in their area, which is where mentoring helps, and I use coaching techniques where finding the answer themselves will serve them better than my advice (note: when the sessions lean towards mentoring, they can run for longer, without the gaps coaching needs). It always depends on the person, and I think people need a bit of a nudge and understanding before they jump into a decision.

So, if you think you need help but have no idea what that looks like, reach out; that first chat is where it starts (the details are under Coaching & Mentoring).