Coaching vs Mentoring : the difference

A mentor acts as an experienced advisor to a mentee. A mentor is usually from the same field as the mentee and passes his or her skills and experience to the mentee. A mentor-mentee relationship is highly relationship driven and normally is on a voluntary basis. A mentor usually has been through a career path that is identical to the one that the mentee aspires to be on. Mentees will largely ask the questions to tap into the mentor's expertise. Mentors will normally offer a direct solution to the mentees questions or problems.

A coach partners with a client in a thought-provoking and creative process, to crystallize the clients goals, their values and helps them maximize their full potential. A coach is trained to enable the client to explore solutions to his or her problem. Very rarely coaches will tell the solution to a problem, instead they will ask the right questions for the client to generate solutions. Largely, coaches enable clients to cover the distance between competence and excellence, and thus is performance driven.