By Dana Phillips.
Have you ever wondered what the difference is between mentoring and coaching? As a leader, you wear many hats. When you have new consultants and new managers, you spend a lot of time wearing your training hat. You are the expert teaching them what to do and how to do it to build a business. You put on your mentoring and coaching hats as you work with those who have defined goals they want to achieve.
So what’s the difference between mentoring and coaching? A mentor is a more experienced person who shares their knowledge and wisdom with someone less experienced in a trusting relationship. When you are a mentor, you give advice, guidance, and direction and share your own experiences. It might sound like this, “This is what I did,” or “This is how I would do it.” Many times you are creating “mini-me’s” who can do the job just like you did. As I look back on my early leadership style, I realize that I did much training and mentoring. I thought that was enough. I had “mini-me’s” who did everything just like me; they talked like me, dressed like me, and used my words and phrases. That was fine for a while until I learned that not everyone was like me and often didn’t want to do it like me. They wanted to learn how to be successful in their style.
That’s where coaching enters. Coaching is holding someone to what they want to do, in the way they want to do it, and in the way they want to be held accountable. It’s done by asking questions and giving them space to process and answer. Coaches ask open-ended questions that begin with what, when, where, who, how, how come. They have the future leader set her own actions steps by asking, “What will you do this week to get closer to your goal? “ And they close a coaching session with “How do you want to hold yourself accountable?”
Coaching is not telling anyone what to do. It gives them the space to come up with their answers by asking the questions that help them figure it out. This gives them ownership of what they need to do to reach their goal.
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