SBAFA Program for Mentoring and Coaching Internship

Overview

Women’s coaching program offers extensive coaching in personal development, marketing, sales, accounting, and financial management.

as well as access to the international markets as they scale their own marketing and sales strategies and financial management plans.

Don’t miss the chance and apply now for the SBAPA Coaching Program #applynow

SBAPA is 30-day-long

The Definitions of Coaching and Mentoring

Mentoring: The Definition
A mentor is someone who shares their knowledge, skills and/or experience, to help another to develop and grow.

Coaching: The Definition
A coach is someone who provides guidance to a client on their goals and helps them reach their full potential.

Now, looking at these two definitions, we would forgive you for still not being totally sure about the key differences between mentoring and coaching. One of the most distinct differences is that mentoring is directive, with coaching being non-directive. What does that mean in practice? Well, in mentoring meetings, it is likely to be the mentor doing more of the talking, whereas in coaching it is likely to be the coach posing questions and giving the person they are coaching the space to reflect and do most of the talking. Ultimately, both coaching and mentoring are about helping people to get where they want to go by leveraging the experience of the coach or mentor. They can be seen to evolve from directive (mentoring) to non-directive (coaching) in a chart often used to depict the differences.

The Differences Between Mentoring and Coaching

Below are a few of the key differences between mentoring and coaching, compared. We’ll start with the key differences for mentoring:

• Mentoring is often longer-term with some mentoring relationships lasting 6+ months and in several cases mentoring can last years or even decades. In fact, some famous mentors and mentees cite lifelong mentoring relationships.
• No qualifications are required for mentoring, which means that it is easy for organisations to start mentoring programmes quickly. Yes, mentoring training is often recommended but it certainly isn’t required and in fact there are very few mentoring qualifications offered, compared with that of coaching qualifications.
• As mentioned, mentoring is a lot more directive. It is about the mentor sharing their knowledge, experience and skills, telling the mentee and guiding them through direction.
• Typically, mentoring is less structured than coaching and whilst having a mentoring meeting agenda and goals is recommended, it will be up to the mentee to put this together, compared with coaching which typically follows a more rigorous structure.
• Finally, mentoring is mainly development driven and looks to the mentee to decide what they wish to achieve and which goals they have for their mentoring relationships.

Now, the key differences for coaching are:

• Coaching is often shorter-term and may be as short as a quick 10- or 15-minute conversation. That said, some coaching relationships can be longer-term too.
• There is training in coaching skills and a lot of coaching qualifications are available, and almost always necessary and certainly recommended, to be a truly effective coach.
• Unlike mentoring, coaching is non-directive which means that it is about posing the right questions, providing the space, trust and confidence for the individual being coached to consider how they can achieve more, reach their objectives and find capabilities within themselves.
• Typically, coaching is structured by line-managers or sponsors, so organisations will often sponsor an individual to be coached or a line-manager will send an employee to be coached for certain skills.
• Coaching is performance driven and encourages the individual or individuals being coached to perform in their day-to-day roles.

So, as you can see, there are lots of key differences. There are lots of skills required and recommended for both coaching and mentoring, which we will explore now too.