Tips for Starting a Successful Business

Is Coaching Or Mentoring Better For You?

8 November 2022 by Brianna Cole

When you know it's time for a change, you know you could benefit from some help. As you look for someone who you can work with, you'll eventually have to decide between coaching and mentoring. These overlap in certain ways but are very different in others. 

Do You Need Short-Term or Long-Term Guidance?

Coaching tends to focus on short-term goals. You can certainly meet with a coach for a long time, of course, but you'll likely be working on different goals, often rather short-term ones or goals that have a defined ending point, such as working your way up to a specific executive position. Mentoring is more of an indefinite partnership where the mentor takes the lead, guiding you through a grad school program or helping you learn about the way a specific field or even a company works.

Do You Have a Specific Goal or Do You Need All-Around Help?

If you have a specific goal, you'll benefit more from meeting with a coach. A coach will ask you questions and help you identify which barriers are external and real and which are internal and ones that you can change. You'll discuss whether this goal is something you really want, or if there is something in this goal that is bothering you. It's a very results-oriented type of guidance.

If you need all-around help, though, and you're just trying to figure out how to get through your days and learn what you need to know to be in the field you're in, that's a mentoring situation. A mentor will function sort of as a teacher in that they'll tell you about how the field works and what you need to look out for.

Are You Trying to Advance in a Field or Survive and Learn More in a Field?

Someone who could benefit from coaching is someone who might be trying to advance in a field and take their skills to the next level. For example, a mid-level manager who wants to eventually reach a higher level of management in their career may sign up with a coach to work on determining which skills need improvement, whether moving to a new company is an option, and finding more efficient ways of delegating work.

Mentoring, on the other hand, might be more suitable for someone who is new to a particular field and who needs to observe others in action to learn how to deal with the field daily. It may include discussions about how you eventually advance, but mentoring is more about surviving and learning in a new situation, while coaching is about advancing and breaking through.

Online coaching makes everything easier as you no longer have to restrict yourself to meeting only with coaches in your immediate area. And, you can technically "meet" the coach no matter where you are, as long as you have access to the internet. If you want to break through an executive-level barrier, a coach can help you identify the right path to your goal.

Contact a local online executive coaching service to learn more. 

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