Mentoring

Many organizations couple coaching and mentoring together as part of the same scheme or process. Again, we would agree that there is an element of overlapping; but for the purpose of this book, we have excluded mentoring. We define mentoring as:

General guidance or advice regarding life or career.

Mentoring, which covers a range of issues, is much more general than coaching, which looks at a specific skill or area. It usually helps people progress within a specific field or organization and helps individuals look at how they use their networking, profile and organizational politics.

More often than not a mentor is someone who is senior to their mentee, either within the organization or within their specialist field. In seeking a mentor, individuals will look for a role model who they can relate to on a personal level as well as someone who is well-respected within their area. This differs from coaching in a number of ways:

• The coach does not have to be senior to their coachee .

• The relationship is not so personal “ the coachee does not need to like his or her coach, but a mentee generally needs to like his or her mentor.

• Coaching is about one specific subject, where mentoring is about general issues of career and life development.