Table 1: Differences between Mentoring and Coaching

Mentor Coach
Focus Individual Performance
Role Facilitator with no agenda Specific agenda
Relationship Self selecting Comes with the job
Source of influence Perceived value Position
Personal returns Affirmation/learning Teamwork/performance
Arena Life Task related

Focus

Mentors in either a formal mentoring program or informal relationship focus on the person, their career and
support for individual growth and maturity while the coach is job-focused and performance oriented.

"A mentor is like a sounding board, they can give advice but the partners is free to pick and choose what they
do. The context does not have specific performance objectives. A coach is trying to direct a person to some
end result, the person may choose how to get there, but the coach is strategically assessing and monitoring
the progress and giving advice for effectiveness and efficiency."

"Mentoring is biased in your favor. Coaching is impartial, focused on improvement in behavior."

In summary, the mentor has a deep personal interest, personally involved—a friend who cares about you and
your long term development. The coach develops specific skills for the task, challenges and performance
expectations at work.

Role

Mentoring is a power free, two-way mutually beneficial relationship. Mentors are facilitators and teachers
allowing the partners to discover their own direction.

"They let me struggle so I could learn."

"Never provided solutions—always asking questions to surface my own thinking and let me find
my own solutions."

A coach has a set agenda to reinforce or change skills and behaviors. The coach has an objective/goals for
each discussion. In our study, the top four words chosen to best describe their mentor’s dominant style were
—friend/confidant, direct, logical, questioner.

Relationship

Even in formal mentoring programs the partners and mentor have choices—to continue, how long, how often,
and our focus. Self-selection is the rule in informal mentoring relationships with the partners initiating and
actively maintaining the relationship. If I’m you mentor, you probably picked me. In an organization your
coach hired you. Coaching comes with the job, a job expectation, in some organizations a defined competency
for managers and leaders.
 Source of influence

The interpersonal skills will determine the effectiveness of influence for both coach and mentor. The coach
also has an implied or actual level of authority by nature of their position, ultimately they can insist on
compliance. A mentor’s influence is proportionate to the perceive value they can bring to the relationship. It is
a power free relationship based on mutual respect and value for both mentor and partners. Your job
description might contain "coach" or you might even have that job title—it’s just a label or expectation.
"Mentor" is a reputation that has to be personally earned, you are not a mentor until the partners says you
are.

Return

The coach’s returns are in the form of more team harmony, and job performance. The mentoring relationship
is reciprocal. There is a learning process for the mentor from the feedback and insights of the partners.

"The ability to look at situations from a different perspective, I am a Generation X and he is in his 60’s."

The relationship is a vehicle to affirm the value of and satisfaction from fulfilling a role as helper and
developer of others. Mentors need not be an all-knowing expert—such a position could be detrimental. In our
study the most significant thing the mentor did was "listened and understood me" and, "built my confidence
and trust in myself, empowered me to see what I could do."

Arena

A great deal of informal mentoring is occurring, with at risk youth, in our schools, as well as in volunteer, not
for profit and for profit organizations. If I am your mentor chances are you have chosen me to be of help with
some aspect of your life. Coaching even in the sporting arena is task related—improvement of knowledge,
skills or abilities to better perform a given task. Mentors are sought for broader life and career issues. The
partners is proactive in seeking out mentors and keeping the relationship productive. The coach crates the
need for discussion and is responsible for follow up and holding others accountable.

Coaching Steps

Use these steps in effective and supportive coaching.

 Show confidence in the employee's ability and willingness to solve the problem. Ask him or her for
help in solving the problem.
 Describe the performance problem. Focus on the problem or behavior that needs improvement, not
the person. Ask for the employee's view of the situation.
 Determine whether issues exist that limit the employee's ability to perform the task or accomplish
the objective. Four common barriers are time, training, tools, and temperment. Determine how to remove
these barriers.
 Discuss potential solutions to the problem or improvement actions to take. Ask the employee for
ideas on how to correct the problem, or prevent it from happening again.
 Agree on a written action plan that lists what the employee, the supervisor, and possibly, the HR
professional, will do to correct the problem or improve the situation.
 Set a date and time for follow-up. Determine if a critical feedback path is needed, so the supervisor
knows how the employee is progressing. Offer positive encouragement. Express confidence in the
employee's ability to improve.
Traditional forms of training Coaching/mentoring
 Wholesale transfer of new skills, e.g.  Development activities are designed to suit
change in procedures, new systems client’s personal needs (whether aspiration or
(e.g. software application training), performance related) and learning styles.
new job function.  Fine tunes and develops skills.
 Programmes are mostly generic and  Can focus on interpersonal skills, which cannot
not tailored to individual needs. be readily or effectively transferred in a
Delegates generally have to complete traditional training environment.
standard modules, so there is little  Provides client with contacts and networks to
room for tailoring the programme to assist with furthering their career or life
account for existing knowledge, skills aspirations.
or preferences.  Performed in the ‘live’ environment or off-line.
 Not always sufficiently similar to the  Highly effective when used as a means of
‘live’ working environment to ensure supporting training initiatives to ensure that
effective skills transfer. key skills are transferred to the ‘live’
 Best suited to transfer of knowledge environment.
and certain skills rather than the  Coaches and mentors transfer the skills to the
development of personal qualities or client rather than doing the job for them.
competencies

Counselling Consultancy
 Explore personal issues and problems  Focus is on developing organisational
through discussion in order to practices, processes and structure.
increase understanding or develop  Role generally more strategic and often used
greater self-awareness. to instigate and design broad ranging change
 The aim of counselling is to lead the programmes
client toward self-directed actions to  Consultancy frequently involves expert advice
achieve their goals. about specific issues and organisational
processes.
   Consultants are often brought in to provide
specific ‘solutions’ to business problems and
needs
N.B Coaching and counselling share many  Consultant leads the job for the organisation:
core skills. However, professional counsellors whilst upskilling the employee/client may be a
work with personal issues in much greater contractual part of the service, it is not
depth than would generally be explored generally the primary goal.
within a coaching context.

N.B. The term consultant coach is often used when the

coach is external to the organisation and therefore
offering services on an ‘external’ or ‘consultancy’ basis.
This is not, however, the same as consultancy per se.

Coaching and mentoring has been offered by

consultancy companies for many years, even though it
is not specifically ‘consultancy’ It is only recently that
people have begun drawing a distinction which in some
cases, like the distinction between coaching and
mentoring, is not useful in distinguishing between
them.
Counseling
Counseling is one of the methods used to offer advice and assist with the development of members of staff in an
organization.   It is not only limited to personal matters affecting members of staff but can also be used to assist with
the professional development of individuals and can help to steer one in the right direction in terms of business
development. Business development counseling may involve providing advice on accessing finance, marketing, human
resources, operations management and feasibility studies. 

Counseling is a very important aspect of management specifically in conducting performance appraisals, handling
grievances and taking disciplinary action against employees. 

In essence, counseling is the processes by which individuals are assisted with identifying their problems, and finding
solutions to same.   

There are two methods of counseling that is widely accepted: directive counseling involves the counselor issuing
directives to the counselee about the possible consequences of a particular action and taking the initiative to show or lead
the counselee in the correct path.   Indirect counseling encourages more interaction on the part of the counselee and
assumes that the most effective way of arriving at solutions to particular problems/issues is if the counselee is involved in
the discussion and ultimate solution to the problem. These solutions are therefore not implemented unless the counselee
is in total agreement and accepts the possible outcomes.

Coaching and mentoring – what's the difference?

Why coaching and mentoring? You will recognise that to survive and
prosper in these tough times, your organisation has to be performing at
the highest level of effectiveness.

This means leadership skills, decision-making, staff relations, creativity,

stress and time management, meeting control or sensitive issue
handling, has to be of the very highest order.

Executive coaching and mentoring can help you in all those vital areas
and more, because it's all about the future ...

... discovering your hidden potential and achieving it – fast!

Brefi Group has enjoyed enormous success doing exactly this for leading
organisations around the world for over two decades.

What is coaching?
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) lists some characteristics of coaching in
organisations that are generally agreed on by most coaching professionals: -

 It consists of one-to-one developmental discussions.

 It provides people with feedback on both their strengths and weaknesses.
 It is aimed at specific issues/areas.
 It is a relatively short-term activity, except in executive coaching, which tends to have a longer
timeframe.
 It is essentially a non-directive form of development.
 It focuses on improving performance and developing/enhancing individuals skills.
 It is used to address a wide range of issues.
 Coaching activities have both organisational and individual goals.
 It assumes that the individual is psychologically healthy and does not require a clinical intervention.
  It works on the premise that clients are self-aware, or can achieve self-awareness.
 It is time-bounded.
 It is a skilled activity
 Personal issues may be discussed but the emphasis is on performance on work.

Coaching and mentoring processes

Individual and management development can take place in many forms, some delivered by managers and
some by internal or external coaches, or mentors. Robert Dilts defines the different activities as follows: -

Guiding: the process of directing an individual or a group along the path leading from present state to a
desired state

Coaching: helping another person to improve awareness, to set and achieve goals in order to improve a
particular behavioural performance

Teaching: helping an individual or group develop cognitive skills and capabilities

Mentoring: helping to shape an individual’s beliefs and values in a positive way; often a longer term career
relationship from someone who has ‘done it before’

Counselling: helping an individual to improve performance by resolving situations from the past.

Differences between mentoring and coaching

The CIPD differentiates between coaching, mentoring and counselling.

Mentoring Coaching
Ongoing relationship that can last for Relationship generally has a set
a long period of time duration
Can be more informal and meetings Generally more structured in nature and
can take place as and when the meetings are scheduled on a regular
mentee needs some advice, guidance basis
or support
More long-term and takes a broader Short-term (sometimes time-bounded)
view of the person and focused on specific development
areas/issues
Mentor is usually more experienced Coaching is generally not performed on
and qualified than the ‘mentee’. the basis that the coach needs to have
Often a senior person in the direct experience of their client’s formal
organisation who can pass on occupational role, unless the coaching is
knowledge, experience and open specific and skills-focused
doors to otherwise out-of-reach
opportunities
Focus is on career and personal Focus is generally on
development development/issues at work
Agenda is set by the mentee, with The agenda is focused on achieving
the mentor providing support and specific, immediate goals
guidance to prepare them for future
roles
Mentoring resolves more around Coaching revolves more around specific
developing the mentee professional development areas/issues
Counselling, is a highly skilled intervention focused on helping individuals address underlying psychological
problems.
Differences between counselling and coaching
Counselling Coaching
Broader focus and greater depth Narrower focus
Goal is to help people understand the The goal is to improve an individual’s
root causes of long-standing performance at work
performance problems/issues at
work
A short-term intervention, but can Tends for be a short-term intervention
last for longer time periods due to
the breadth of issues to be addressed
Counselling can be used to address Coaching does not seek to resolve any
psycho-social as well as performance underlying psychological problems. It assumes
issues a person does not require a psycho-social
intervention
The agenda is generally agreed by The agenda is typically set by the individual,
the individuals and the counsellor but in agreement/ consultation with the
organisation
Other stakeholders are rarely Other stakeholders are involved
involved