2025-04-02 Mentoring vs Coaching ================================ I think mentoring is valuable, I think coaching is valuable, and I think they’re two different things, though I often see them conflated. Roughly put, I’d say: - Mentoring - “I’ve done Things Like This before, let me share my experience and knowledge and thoughts” - Coaching - “I see you’re trying to do a Thing, let me help you work through that with questions and reflections and facilitation” That is, you need to have relevant experience in the area to *mentor* someone on it, whereas anyone basically competent can coach. And I absolutely do not mean to be dismissive or downplay anything there - being a *good* coach is a real skill and I’ve had the fortune to know and work with some truly fantastic coaches. But I think you could pluck a random person off the street and give them a print-out of `the GROW model `__ and they could help someone, because coaching is primarily about the person being coached, while mentoring is about both mentee and mentor and requires that the mentor have at least *some* relevant experience. In a more concrete example - I expect Engineering Managers in my organisation to act as *coaches* for Engineers reporting to them, but I don’t expect them to act as *mentors* - this is where other (usually senior) Engineers come in. And this comes from me not expecting Engineering Managers to be Engineers - I expect them to be *technical*, just not necessarily actually engineers (former or otherwise) - hence I don’t expect them to necessarily be in a position to mentor another engineer. So -- `Language prescriptivism `__ has its problems and I’m certainly not trying to claim this as some universal truth - but I think folks who conflate the two terms aren’t necessarily doing so consciously or knowingly. I think both techniques are valuable, and maintaining a clear distinction avoids losing sight of one or both.