With mentoring, employees learn from the skills, experience and knowledge of more senior people in their organisation or their network and draw on the mentor’s advice to develop their own skills and expertise. Mentors also benefit from the relationship, gaining insight into what their mentee says about the workplace and about any emerging organisational and sector trends at an operational level.

It’s a developmental tool used by a huge variety of organisations, big and small, across the voluntary, private and public sector. It’s particularly useful when learning budgets are tight, such as in the charity sector, and can help with recruitment and retention.

While mentoring and coaching are widely recognised as important learning initiatives, people routinely confuse them, viewing them as the same thing. They are actually two very different disciplines. There are some similarities in that they are both ways of helping people learn, develop and move forward with their careers. They both involve one-to-one conversations with a trusted person over a period of time. And they both work particularly well at certain touchpoints in a person’s career – when starting a new role or project, when first stepping into a management or leadership position, for example. But there are also some important differences between mentoring and coaching.

What is mentoring?

Mentoring is when a more experienced colleague or person in the mentee’s network shares their knowledge, experiences and advice. Mentors act as a guide, giving answers to questions and solutions to problems. They are often subject matter experts – ie. they have been through the same or similar challenges, potentially in the same organisation, and can use that experience to offer support and guidance.

What is coaching?

Coaching is a non-directive way of developing people. The focus is on helping the coachee find their own answers and reach their own conclusions. It’s about giving people the space to think and explore. Coaches ask questions rather than giving answers. And they don’t have to be subject matter experts – their expertise is in coaching.

It is important to note that mentors can also use coaching tools and techniques during the mentoring relationship, but it does not work the other way round – a coach should never use mentoring tools and techniques.

At the end of 2023, Martin Baker, CEO, Charity Mentoring Network, asked his LinkedIn network for their thoughts on the difference between mentoring and coaching. He received some great responses:

A coach uses tools and techniques to support a learner to solve their own problems and find their own path.
A mentor uses their experience and expertise to educate a learner.
A mentor might also coach, but a coach will never mentor
Shanice McBean, Prostate Cancer

Simple. Coaching is about process, mentoring is about content
Meg Peppin, MP Partnership

If I am coaching I am helping them to create and test their preferred solution. If I am mentoring then I am more likely to share my experience and advice.
Ian Perry, Emerge OD Consultants

There are so many different views on this. For me, the distinction is that a mentor is someone who has walked that path before us and can therefore share their guidance, experience and wisdom from lessons learned along the way as we navigate our own journey. A coach, on the other hand, helps you to tap into your own inner wisdom to find your best way forward. They won’t necessarily have experience in your sector/industry/position because that isn’t necessary – they don’t need to have done what you do.
Donna Ward-Higgs, Learning Partner Solutions

Coaching is where the answers lie with the person being coached. The coach asks questions to help the coachee think more clearly. A mentor is someone who has relevant experience they are willing to share. They may use coach-like skills as they aren’t just there to advise and to encourage ownership by the mentee. I flip between the roles even in one conversation depending on the topic and where I can add the most value!
Blaire Palmer, That People Thing

Mentoring: A guide on a mountain path, showing you the way to go. You listen to their ADVICE.
Coaching: A person with you, standing alongside you, as you discover fresh snow… You direct, they stand alongside, support and help NAVIGATE.
You set the pace, direction and destination.
Mayuri Hargest, Neon Lioness Coaching

Coaching is unlocking the potential in others. We don’t need any prior knowledge of the topic. A good coach can coach anyone on anything.
Mentoring is when someone has been there and bought the t-shirt. They have experience. They may offer advice and potential solutions, while using a coaching style.
Jo Wright, author of No more sh*t managers

Mentor replies to questions, coach asks questions
Hatice S.Demircan, Master HR Consulting and Coaching

Coaching: goal-oriented, structured, and focused on personal development and self-discovery.
Mentoring: long-term, relationship-driven, and centred on sharing knowledge, experience, and guidance
Benjamin Murray, Anglian Water Services

Coaching: Non-directive. Using questions, listening, presence, space, challenge etc to help someone think. This could be helping someone think through blockers, challenges, hopes or goals. But a coach won’t provide an answer. That is the job of the coachee.
Mentoring: Directive. Potentially partnering with a subject matter expert to get guidance, advise, support on a particular topic. A mentor will usually have answers and offer them to a mentee.
Andrew Barsley, Jack HR

Key benefits of the mentoring approach:

• Mentoring boosts individual, team, organisational and sectoral skills
• People who have been mentored are more likely to be promoted
• Mentoring encourages internal and external networking, collaboration and cross-departmental, cross-functional and potentially cross-sector working
• Mentees typically report higher levels of engagement, job satisfaction and loyalty
• Mentoring boosts confidence and helps onboard employees into new roles
• Organisations that offer mentoring often outperform organisations that do not offer mentoring
• Mentoring schemes improve talent pipelines, internal mobility, recruitment and retention rates
• Mentoring enables the mentor and mentee to work on challenges specific to the needs of the individual, their role and the organisation

If you’d like to find out more, why not join us for our next virtual coffee morning