Difference between Coaching and Mentoring

Coaching is defined as when an experienced expert guides and upskills employees or clients to acquire their desired goals. Mentoring is defined as when a more senior and experienced employee of a company shares his skills, learning, and bucket of knowledge to help a junior employee grow and develop.

What is Coaching?

In an organisation, a coach is a person who has upskilled his skill set and aims to use these skills to help the learners to bring up success by achieving their goals. In the process of coaching, the coach may or may not share his personal experience with the learners, like in mentoring. It is not expected that the learners will follow the path toward the goal through the experience shared by the coach. Improvement of competencies and capabilities is done in the coaching process. Coaching is a structured process that mainly aims to help individuals upgrade their productivity, develop specific skills and enhance their performance.

What is Mentoring?

In corporate organisations, when a fresher enters the company, mentoring is provided to the fresher where he gets support and guidance from his superior. Mentoring mainly aims to enhance the career of the Mentee. Here the superior is known as Mentor. A mentor is an individual who has good knowledge and experience. Mentoring is the process considered as the counselling process which is done to provide guidance and support for the upcoming career development of the freshers. The mentor in the process of Mentoring acts as a source of information, solving their problems and answering their questions.

Difference between Coaching and Mentoring

Basis	Coaching	Mentoring
Meaning	When an individual is supervised by a superior person to improve his competencies and capabilities, it is known as coaching.	When a fresher gets support and guidance from a senior person, it is known as mentoring.
Aim	Coaching aims to boost performance and achieve specific goals.	Mentoring aims to foster the overall personal and professional development of an individual.
Duration	The coaching process is carried out for short-term engagement.	The mentoring process is carried out for long-term engagement.
Orientation	Coaching is task-oriented.	Mentoring is relationship-oriented.
Role	A coach has the role to guide, support, and provide feedback to the individual.	Mentor has the role to share experience, knowledge, and advice with the mentees.
Objective	Coaching aims to analyse the individual’s performance and frequently improve them.	Mentoring has the objective to help an employee or mentee to attain psychological maturity and effectiveness.
Emphasis	Emphasis is given to performance.	Emphasis is given to career.
Type	Coaching is formal in nature.	Mentoring is informal in nature.