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In the vast landscape of professional development, two terms often surface because they are often confused: mentoring and coaching. These two approaches, although linked by the common goal of helping individuals reach their full potential, have certain similarities and differences that are worth exploring. If you’ve ever wondered what distinguishes mentoring from coaching, or the role of a mentor versus that of a coach, you’ve come to the right place.
Of course, there will always be some grey areas, as both approaches aim to help individuals maximize their potential.
What you’ll learn in this resource:
→ What is mentoring?
→ What mentoring can do and what it can be
→ What is coaching?
→ 6 differences between coaching and mentoring
→ Mentoring or coaching: what to choose for my professional development?
→ How to align mentoring with other forms of professional support within your organization ?
What is mentoring?
Mentoring is a means of development and learning, based on a voluntary, free and confidential interpersonal relationship (the mentoring relationship), in which an experienced person (the mentor) invests his or her acquired wisdom and expertise to foster the development of another person (the mentee) who has skills and abilities to acquire and professional and personal goals to achieve (Source: Mentorat Québec).
Thus, the mentor is the one who gives and shares his or her time and knowledge to the mentee, who receives them in order to progress.
Whether it’s a new role, a challenge to solve, a goal to reach, a path to follow, a mentor will help his or her mentee to reveal his or her potential, to build his or her professional project, while providing him or her with reference points. It’s often said that a mentor is someone who’s “been there, done that”, like a Sherpa guiding the way on a mountain expedition. It’s also often said that mentoring is a reciprocal relationship, in the sense that it also contributes to the mentor’s development.
Mentors have a number of functions in relation to their mentees (Renée Houde, 2010): they focus on the mentoring relationship, adopting a benevolent and empathetic welcoming posture; they guide, question, teach, coach, respond to the mentee, serve as a role model, challenge the mentee to promote his/her advancement, advise, give feedback, support the decision-making process, and provide moral encouragement.
Having a mentor means benefiting from personalized advice and recommendations based on real-life experience and focused on your career path.
Mentoring is a learning relationship in which a mentor is involved in both the mentee’s career and psychosocial development.
Mentors help their mentees to develop “savoirs-faire” and “savoirs-être”, as well as “savoirs devenir”.
Coaching, on the other hand, is an interactive process focused on achieving specific goals. A professional coach works with a person (the client) to help them clarify their goals, identify potential obstacles, develop action plans and make progress towards achieving those goals. Coaching often focuses on developing skills, improving performance and creating concrete results. The coach asks thought-provoking questions, offers specific tools and techniques, and encourages the client to find his or her own answers and solutions. Coaching can be short-term, focused on specific objectives, or take place over a longer period depending on the client’s needs.
Business coaching can focus on a variety of aspects, including leadership, time management, decision-making, communication, problem-solving, confidence-building, stress management, and many others. The main aim is to help individuals maximize their potential and contribute more effectively to the company.
The role of a business coach is to work with the client to maximize their potential and contribution to the business. Corporate coaching can be used at various levels of the organization, from individual employees to senior executives, and can cover a wide range of professional fields.
It’s important to recognize that mentoring and coaching share many similarities:
Firstly, both approaches enable people to gain competence and touch on similar themes (leadership development, managerial posture, communication style, etc.). Finally, mentors and coaches use the same communication tools: open questions, reformulation, feedback, etc.).
However, even if the distinctions between mentoring and coaching are sometimes subtle, the framework of the relationship and the approach chosen in terms of accompaniment are not the same.
The nature of the relationship : mentoring is often associated with deeper relationships and greater emotional support. Coaching, on the other hand, is often focused on task-oriented, professional relationships.
Posture in the relationship : In mentoring, the emphasis is on sharing experiences and advice to guide the mentee in his/her development, whereas coaching focuses on accompanying the client to achieve specific goals using adapted techniques and tools. Example: to help a mentee develop his or her sense of managerial courage, a mentor will draw on his or her experience and knowledge of the manager’s role in the organization, and will suggest approaches and reflections based on his or her knowledge of the company, his or her experience, and what has worked well or poorly for him or her. Conversely, the coach has a more objective viewpoint, as he or she is very often external to the organization, and will rely more on precise tools. Occasionally, the mentor acts as coach, but the reverse is rarer. In all cases, these two forms of support enable the individual to progress in his or her career, but in different ways.
The duration of the relationship : Coaching generally involves short-term relationships between coaches and coachees. Sometimes, a few sessions are enough to achieve specific goals, and the relationship ends. Mentoring, on the other hand, requires longer-term relationships, fostering the creation of a climate of trust conducive to open discussion of individuals’ concerns and doubts with their mentors.
Choice of topics : in mentoring, mentees have complete freedom in the topics they wish to discuss with their mentors. Conversely, in coaching, the topics discussed are very closely linked to organizational objectives and the role in which the individual is evolving.
Hierarchical position : Coaches are usually certified and paid to help the coachee achieve their objectives. Mentors, on the other hand, are not trained in the helping relationship; their involvement is primarily voluntary and based on their own experiences. In mentoring, there is no hierarchical relationship. The mentor must not be the mentee’s immediate superior. Conversely, in coaching, the coach may be the employee’s immediate superior or an external coach.
Performance : In mentoring, the learning relationship is not based on evaluation or performance. Mentors do not evaluate their mentees; on the contrary, they must be patient with the person’s pace of learning. In contrast, the coaching approach is more results-oriented.
The choice between mentoring and coaching for your professional development depends on your specific needs, your professional goals, your learning style and your current situation. Note that you don’t have to choose exclusively one or the other approach; you can combine mentoring and coaching if it suits your needs. A person could very well have a mentor and a coach at the same time, just as a person could seek out several mentors for different aspects of his or her career.
Here are some factors to consider to help you make an informed decision.
In many organizations, mentoring can be offered to complement the support and workshops already available to employees. For mentoring to work effectively and take its place among the other forms of support available, certain crucial steps need to be followed.
First of all, it’s essential to communicate clearly about the objectives and mission of the mentoring program being set up. This communication is essential to avoid any confusion among employees. Example: mentoring needs to be positioned as a distinct resource that offers complementary benefits to other forms of support, such as coaching, online workshops or other development initiatives. Participants need to understand what mentoring can do for them in a unique way.
Mentoring program managers need to consider the timing of mentoring. Offering the right approaches at the right time is crucial to keeping participants engaged and committed. For example, if employees are already solicited with a mandatory coaching program, online courses for the development of specific expertise, etc., the addition of a mentoring program could be proposed in a secondary phase and not in parallel.
Example: when integrating into a new organization, a new employee is often focused on learning the company’s processes, procedures and culture. He or she may not have the mental space or distance to take full advantage of a mentoring relationship. In this case, it may make more sense to offer mentoring a few weeks after induction, once the employee has acquired a deeper understanding of his or her role and development needs.
Elo’s solutions make it easy for organizations to launch and manage a mentoring program, with consulting services, workshops and even a mentoring platform. Our experts are there to support you at every stage of your program’s design, implementation or evaluation. Program managers, mentors and mentees benefit from personalized coaching.