Coaching vs Mentoring: What is the difference?

What is the role of a coach? How would you define coaching? What is a mentor supposed to do? What is the purpose of mentorship? What’s the difference between coaching and mentoring? There are many different coaching vs mentoring questions, and it is totally normal if you don’t know the answers YET.

When you need a little push to help you move forward, you should look for a mentor or coach, or both. But to know what you exactly need, first you have to figure out what they do and the difference between coaching and mentoring! There are significant differences between coaching vs mentoring from your relationship, goals, expectations, and evaluations.

Let’s explore the two.

Coaching is a relatively modern term starting in the 1950s, 1960s. A coach is someone who can help you with a specific skill. It might be a sport, football, soccer, dancing. It might be another kind of skill, such as; writing, public speaking, a musical instrument, and so on.

Thus, a coach is someone who’s focused on a narrow, specific thing to help you get better on that as quickly as possible. So, you’re not wasting time with struggles that the coach can show you how to be much more effective in much less time.

On the other hand, mentoring is a term that goes back to ancient Greece, ancient Rome, even long before. And a mentor is usually a much older, wiser person with a lot of life experience in a specific field or relevant or exciting fields for you or might be.

A mentor can see the big picture of you, your personality, life, spirit, soul. That’s trying to come out into the world and give you some guidance and have good conversations with you to help reveal that path for you. You can have more progress and unfolding, more growth in your life in a speedy and accelerated way than doing it alone.

Now, the interesting thing is a mentor, and a coach might not necessarily be able to help you with the other tasks. For instance, a mentor might see that you have musical talent but wouldn’t necessarily coach you.

They might then send you to a coach to learn that musical instrument or get better with your singing. Or you might have a coach for public speaking. But at the same time, a mentor asks you questions and makes you think about its importance. Is this the best time for you to learn public speaking? Should this be a priority for you this year or next year?

Where should you focus on another high-priority item that will give you more benefit for the immediate future? While the coach is happy to help you with your public speaking skill, the mentor might better see your priorities and life purpose.

Who Can Coach?

The industry is entirely open. In most countries, just about anyone can coach. Your job is to make sure that you have a great fit with a coach you find. So, how to do that is to watch videos, read some materials, jump a free call with them, see how they are as a person, and make sure that you feel comfortable with the person, maybe not too comfortable.

You should also feel a little bit scared at the same time! Because this person wants to push you to grow into your best self. To understand the connection with a coach, invest time, and have some good conversations; astonishing growth will come after that. Find a coach who’s an excellent fit for you, and this will definitely maximize your results.

What is the difference between coaching and mentoring?

Coaching is performance and task-oriented in the short term and only focuses on specific subjects. Mentoring is more development-driven and builds capabilities within you by creating a partnership for the long term and imparts wisdom.

This is a foundational professional and personal experience for your development.

It’s good to know in the coaching vs mentoring question, having a mentor and a coach at the same time will bring better results for your progress and improvement. In that way, you make the most effective use of your time.