Coaching or mentoring? That seems to be the question…

A coach is always ‘non-directive’ whilst a mentor is more experienced and therefore always 'directive'. Terminology that we often hear in education.

The International Coach Federation (ICF) defines coaching as partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximise their personal and professional potential. In service of this, coaches listen deeply using questions to shine a light on themes and patterns to evoke awareness on behaviours. This is framed around being more ‘non-directive’ and never giving advice so that people take ownership of their own growth and development.

A mentor intervention will be framed around receiving advice from someone who has the experience and knowledge that we currently do not have. We will draw on a mentors experience with the intention of acting on it and understanding context by asking more of the questions. In that regard the mentor will be more 'directive', imparting most of the knowledge.

Within the above stances we have a few assumptions. In coaching people have all of the answers within themselves, they know where they are going and possess the required skills and resources to achieve their desired outcomes. This is not always the case. In mentoring we presume that just because someone has experience they can understand context and communicate this effectively in a way that is beneficial for people. Again, not always the case.

The European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC) Coach maturity Research Group has been investigating highly experienced coaches’ journeys over many years. The working group identified that effective mentors have the same basic competencies as coaches, but in addition, they can act as role models and draw more fully upon their wisdom.

When beginning to learn how to work in different modalities definitions are beneficial such as the nuanced differences between coaching and mentoring. This is just the start, not the end. When we engage with coaching in real depth there are inevitable crossovers and we need to be agile in our approach.

In education we are often led by our conditioning. We are in an environment which encourages us to always look for ‘what’s wrong’ and what we’re here to ‘fix’. Maybe a good starting point when working with people is an intention to be predominately non-directive with flexibility in approach if needed.

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