How to Tell if You Need a Coach or a Mentor
By: Phil Hurst
Tags: Coaching, Self Improvement, Productivity, Freelancing, Mentoring

How to Tell if You Need a Coach or a Mentor Phil Hurst Follow Sep 3 · 5 min read

Photo by Monica Melton on Unsplash

You need to make sure you get value for money from a coach. They are really expensive, with some costing a small fortune. They can charge this because they know that when they do a good job they can transform not only an individual, but also a workplace.

Too often though, people confuse the role of a coach with a mentor. This can be an expensive mistake. Through my job I’ve been a workplace coach for three years, and I’ve seen a lot of people not quite get what a coach is. Although not insurmountable, it leads to the odd false start.

Similar, but not the same

Coaches and mentors are different roles. I’ve seen adverts and offers and courses that highlight how good a coach is, based on their prior experience in a particular field. Something along the lines of “Hire Bob B as a workplace coach because he founded 23 $3 billion dollar companies”.

Well done Bob — but while his experience of creating companies makes him an interesting candidate to be a mentor, it doesn’t guarantee he’ll be a great coach.

Coaches don’t need to have made millions in the same field as you. They don’t even need to have worked in the same area. A great coach will bring out the best in you no matter what their personal experience is

Mentors have a totally different set of skills to coaches. I’m not saying they’re not great — far from it, I’ve had some excellent mentors who have helped me in my career and helped my writing improve tenfold. Remember though, what you need from a mentor, and what you expect, should be different.

So what’s the difference between a mentor and a coach

I define the difference with one simple example. When you ask the other a person a question:

Coaches help you realise how you should do it.

Mentors tell you how they would do it.

A good coach helps you solve your problems

Coaching is difficult. I’ve done it before, and I’ve been coached before. The key to a good coach is someone who can get you talking about you. Coaches offer tips, tricks and tools and lead you through your thinking to help you get to the answer yourself.

A good coach approaches all your conversations with them with a question toolkit. They’ll have done their homework and decided which questions will get the best reaction from you. The best coaches then apply these techniques to your discussions in a way that you don’t even realise it’s happening. After your session, voila! You have an answer that you came up with.

To evaluate the coaching, think about the type of thing that you discussed. Did the coach ask you questions that really made you think? Were they difficult to answer? How many times did you get ‘stuck’ on something before the coach helped you find the answer yourself? Good coaches should do all of the above.

Coaching relationships are also usually short term. They will help you make an impact on a specific problem or decision, but they won’t hang around afterwards. You can of course employ them for longer, but you should talk about different things at each session. Maybe one session you want to talk about career development, while the other you discuss your approach to difficult conversations.

When I was coaching, I always wanted to make an impact on someone’s career, make them think in a certain way, and then leave them to it.

Coaches will guide you and question you and sometimes make you face up to things that you don’t want to think about. They will not, however, tell you what they would do in a certain situation. If they do, they’re slipping into the role of a mentor. And that’s what you need to keep an eye out for.

A good mentor tells you how they would solve your problems

One of my first coaching contracts was with someone who thought I was going to help him answer his difficult project delivery questions. I was experienced in the subject area, and every question he came to me with was about specific situations that he wanted me to give him solutions for.

It took a while, but I managed to steer the conversation to get him to think of his own solutions. I explained the difference between a coach and a mentor, and, although I was happy to be a mentor for him in the long term, I was not going to tell him what I would do in a given situation.

Once he knew that he started to approach the sessions in a different way. Rather than expecting answers from me, he started to think critically about how he approached problems and issues, both in our sessions and then back at his desk. That change in mentality was worth more to him in the long run that me telling him how to deal with any particular situation.

Mentors are great for a long term relationship. They will be able to share experiences that you can learn from (think about Bob from the beginning of the article, with his multi-billion dollar businesses). But you should approach a mentor relationship in a similar way that you’d approach a book (although with a mentor you can ask the book questions).

There will be points that you can take straight from your mentor and apply them to your work, there will be points that you have to adapt, and there will be points you’ll have to ignore. The answers come from them, and because of that, you need to be prepared to think critically about how they apply to you.

Mentor or coach?

It’s ultimately up to you whether you want a mentor of a coach. I enjoy being coached and coaching other people, as I think there’s more room for personal growth. But I’ve also seen benefits from a mentor relationship — and indeed mentors are more likely to increase opportunities for you in the long run (as long as they think you’re any good).

But if you take away one thing from reading this article, know the difference between the two roles. Know how to tell when your coach starts to act like a mentor. Because if you don’t you won’t really know what you’re going to get for your money or your time.