Coaching and Mentoring - Two Branches of the Same Tree
You may be hearing a lot these days about the importance of mentorship programs, particularly as we work to close opportunity gaps and pull-through talent representative of our communities. You may also be hearing a lot about professional coaches and perhaps have even considered working with one. Maybe you’ve been offered one through your workplace. January is National Mentoring Month, and we figured this would be a good time to provide a refresher.
With the expansion of the coaching profession and the increased awareness about the power of mentoring, it’s not surprising that these two types of professional support can sometimes be conflated. In fact, we discussed the various types of professional support that are available in a Season 3 episode of the Two Piers podcast with guest Jada Harris, MBA, MS.
So What’s The Difference?
I will admit it freely - when I first started offering coaching through Two Piers, it was with the intent of supporting individuals through challenging workplace environments. The standard model that I had for that revolved around giving advice based on my own lived experiences and insights. It turns out that model is not actually coaching but much closer in nature to mentorship with a sprinkling of consulting on top. In fact, much of what is marketed as coaching these days is not truly coaching, but rather a monetized hybrid between mentorship and consulting.
Fundamentally, the difference comes down to hierarchy. Mentors provide support and advice from a place of their own lived experiences and insights. When a mentee encounters a new situation or challenge, or is unsure of how to proceed, a mentor can share what has worked for them, and perhaps what has not. They can help shortcut the painful lessons that they experienced or witnessed and pass down that valuable wisdom to their mentee. A mentor often has an opinion about what is best for their mentee, or what a mentee should do.
Coaches, however, do not maintain a hierarchy. They act as an external peer to help provide perspective, ask challenging questions, and uncover what is truly most important for their client. They reserve their own opinions and avoid giving advice because their job is to help uncover the answer that is right for their client - and answer which could very well be different than what they themselves would do.
We can use hiking as a metaphor. If we’re hiking with a mentor, they might say, “I’ve been on this trail before, and if you go left, there are more dangers but a shorter distance. If you go right, it’s a longer trail but much safer. I think you should go right.” A coach in this situation, would probably shine the flashlight to illuminate your options and risks, and then ask you, “Which is more important for you? Speed or safety?”
One last important difference is that coaches are often accredited through a certifying body such as the International Coaching Federation while mentors are usually volunteers who may not have received any formal training or support to develop their mentoring skills. While coaches differ greatly in their style, methods and focus areas, there is a general baseline and methodology that is used and which coaches are assessed on. There is also a code of ethics that they voluntarily adhere to when they obtain their credential, and a reporting process if that code is breached. Mentoring programs are not usually subject to certification, mandatory training or external oversight, except perhaps within the organization itself.
How Are They Similar?
There is often some overlap between coaching and mentoring, particularly when a boss or colleague is acting in the capacity of both coach and mentor. Both types of support relationships rely on mutual respect. They both require trust and (usually) benefit from a level of vulnerability and transparency. This means that personal chemistry can be critically important in both mentoring and coaching.
A common misconception is that mentoring is less structured than coaching. Perhaps this perception stems from the fact that many mentorship programs are fully voluntary for both mentees and mentors, and are offered for free within organizations, sometimes with minimal facilitation or oversight.
In reality, mentorship programs benefit greatly from structure, particularly around goals and outcomes. It’s easy to fall into a pattern of catching up for coffee with a mentor and sticking to surface level updates. These types of engagements can be supportive, but they don’t often make good use of the mentees’ or mentors’ precious time.
Whether you’re engaged in a mentorship relationship or a coaching relationship, it is extremely important to be very clear on what your goals for the relationship are and what type of support is being sought. The other type of support that we aren’t discussing here is sponsorship. It’s important to remember that neither coaches nor mentors are signing up to be a sponsor. A mentor is offering advice and support, not advocacy. After a relationship has been established, a mentor may decide to take on the additional role of sponsor, but that is not an upfront assumption. A professional coach, however, will rarely be in a position to act as a sponsor as that would usually create a conflict of interest.
One more similarity between mentoring and coaching is that the mentee or coaching client is often doing most of the work.
Surprised?
It seems reasonable to assume that if you’re paying for a coach, they will be putting forth the lion’s share of the effort. It’s not unusual for a client to thank me for all of my effort after a particularly productive coaching session. I will always remind them that I am simply asking the right questions and they are doing all of the heavy lifting. This dynamic is similar for mentorship. A good mentoring relationship depends on the mentee showing up with a clear understanding of what they want to discuss and an idea of what a good outcome would be. It means they are ready to engage and ask questions and be thoughtful. In both coaching and mentoring, a good session usually entails the support provider doing much less talking than the support recipient.
How to Find A Good mentor or coach
Now that we’ve covered the basics of the similarities and differences, you might be thinking that one or both of these types of support would be valuable. So the next question is how to find a good coach or mentor.
One thing that is consistent is that you can never predict chemistry until you meet with someone, whether that person is a coach or a mentor. Chemistry is both the hardest element to predict and also one of the most critical components of a long term supportive relationship. While you may not be able to select a mentor yourself if you are assigned one through a mentoring program, there are usually options for switching mentors if you find that the spark just isn’t there. Chemistry doesn’t mean that you’ll be best friends and want to socialize outside of work. It means that you can communicate on the same wavelength and have at least some overlap in values. When looking for a mentor outside of a structured program, keep in mind what you’re hoping to learn. In some cases, subject matter expertise is extremely important. In other cases, a shared background, shared experiences, or a similar career path may be most important. In other cases, you may actually want to seek a mentor whose life and experience is in extreme contrast to yours, such that you can broaden your horizons. This is especially the case for reverse mentoring, in which you’re tapping into a lived experience that you otherwise wouldn’t have access to.
In terms of finding a good coach, the chemistry element is still very applicable, however you will have more leeway to meet with a potential coach for a discovery call. In most cases, coaches are being compensated in some way and they are providing a service. If you don’t have chemistry with a coach, you can always switch. Nearly all structured coaching programs have the capability to re-match coaches and clients because it’s well understood that each individual is unique. With coaching, it is less important that the coach has subject matter expertise, as long as they are credentialed through a certifying body. I say this because there is a standard set of skills that all certified coaches have been assessed on, and those skills are entirely topic-agnostic. A skilled coach can support you through nearly any type of decision or challenge, as long as it does not veer into the realm of therapy. That is because true coaching, unlike mentoring, does not involve advice. It involves uncovering the right answer for the client.
One immediate red flag when finding a coach is that A word: Advice. The existence of advice in a coaching relationship is a flashing indicator that the engagement has morphed into either mentorship or, more likely, consulting. Again, those are perfectly suitable types of support, but the former should be free and the latter should be focused on a specific area of expertise. We don’t make many absolute statements here at Two Piers, but we will say this: skilled coaches do not dole out advice. It undermines the confidence of the client and the trust within the relationship.
If you are looking for a qualified, credentialed coach, you can search through the coach databases provided by organizations like the International Coaching Federation and filter based on various criteria. All coaches listed will have achieved a coaching credential.
the importance of Coaching and Mentoring
While coaching and mentoring are quite different, they are both extremely valuable forms of support. Both types of relationships provide access to a different way of thinking, a new perspective, and different frameworks that can support our growth and development. Both forms of support can help mitigate some of the challenges that come with being part of an underrepresented group in the workplace. And while we can often find similar types of support through our friends and family or through informal workplace connections, establishing formal mentorship and coaching relationships can provide a structure and measurability that can pay dividends to not just individuals but also organizations, particularly in terms of professional skill growth, leadership development and workforce retention.