Both coaching and mentoring are an approach to management and a set of skills to nurture staff and deliver results. They are, fundamentally, learning and development activities that share similar roots: a good coach will also mentor and a good mentor will coach too, as appropriate to the situation and the relationship. The article at http://www.adb.org/publications/coaching-and-mentoring treats the two terms interchangeably: both are related processes for analysis, reflection, and action, intended to enable employees achieve their full potential with a focus on skills, performance, and “life” (personal) coaching and mentoring. (This said, footnote 2 in the article summarizes the lively debate among academics and practitioners as to the meaning (and implications) of each word.)

Maybe it is not scientific enough, but I feel the difference in a level of involvement or intervention of a mentor and a coach. I think, coaching is not ideal for the higher education domain since the self-activity of students is expected more than the need for pushing forward.

In your opinion, Who has a higher level of involvement? The mentor or the coach?

Both coaching and mentoring are an approach to management and a set of skills to nurture staff and deliver results. They are, fundamentally, learning and development activities that share similar roots: a good coach will also mentor and a good mentor will coach too, as appropriate to the situation and the relationship. The article at http://www.adb.org/publications/coaching-and-mentoring treats the two terms interchangeably: both are related processes for analysis, reflection, and action, intended to enable employees achieve their full potential with a focus on skills, performance, and “life” (personal) coaching and mentoring. (This said, footnote 2 in the article summarizes the lively debate among academics and practitioners as to the meaning (and implications) of each word.)

In my view, a mentor is less directive than a coach. Whereas a coach might well provide prescriptions and expect them to be followed, a mentor is someone with whom a mentee can discuss professional issues. A mentor normally creates the conditions in which a mentee can reach his/her conclusions/solutions.

I have been a mentor and a coach to many different executives and students. Coaching is more on competencies and capabilities around a project or a task. Coaching is also about developing communication skills or emotional intelligence or effective communication. Mentoring is about igniting the genius of a person -- in other words, it is long term questioning and inquiry to help the person to dig deeper into themselves snap discover where and what would help them the most in their career and relationships. I agree that mentoring is more indirect and coaching can be more directional.

I once heard the analogy of a coach as being like a taxi driver who can help you to get to where you're going, as long as you know where you're going.

I've always seen a mentor as someone who is an example of the success you wish to achieve in your own career, and takes the time to explain the what, how and why factors.

I look at coaching to do with helping managers to become leaders and mentoring is to help leaders tap into their own authenticity and executive presence and differentiate themselves and build their brand. In other words, coaching and mentoring deal with 'feeling' and 'being' parts of ourselves. They can be interchanged because they are like heart and soul of who we are and what we do...

Mentoring is the bigger picture approach often associated with the Protege's career planing and execution with the help of some expert who has had both formal training and hands-on experience which can be beneficial to the Protege. Often it is more long term, and it can be very formal to the point of involving the use of a contract. Whereas Coaching is more short-term, quite specific in terms of outcomes or objectives, and often skill based learning. From the view of HR, coaching is often used for Training & Development, new job orientation, or even corrective behavior issues as a follow-up to to an annual performance review. Coaching is often used by employers as one last effort to improve performance before terminating an employee.  To see specific tools & formats checklists see the 2005 Pfeiffer Annual of Human Resource Management, Mentoring in a New Century, R.C. Fetzer

I consider that at the start, mentor and coach were distinct  concepts, althougt they are none other that two faces of the same.

Even though I have coached/mentored for 25 years and have been an academic at the same time, I focused on just doing rather than writing papers. I wish I spent some of my time writing about it because that helps others to learn from what I have understood. One of these days :-)

Even with all of the common outcomes and purposes for using either Mentoring  & Coaching, these developing formats require some unique skills differences on the part of the Mentor and the Coach, beyond the common specific Communication skills shared by both. For example both the Coach and the Mentor must be very adept with reflective listening skills and Interpersosnal Communication skills. However when mentoring and considerating long-term career issues, the approaches can be broad, experimental, and use back-up plan if a current strategy is not successful. On the other hand, specific Skill development requires immediate mental focus and skill performance analysis. Professionals who do both often discover they are much better Mentors than Coaches or vise-versa. In the past, coaching was specific, immediate, and often very specific mastery, not so true of Mentoring. Unfortunately in recent years, I suspect that the rapid pace of technology development and use of new competitive business strategies in the marketplace is making it even harder to distinguish when professionals are attempting to Mentor from Coach.

I think of mentors as individuals successful in an area that the mentee strives to become successful. A mentor has established credibility in the field and is a person you hope to learn from. Often career advancement related.

A coach does not necessarily need to be a content expert in the particular field of the coachee.  A coaches role is directionally driven  by the coachee and may or may not be specifically related to career advancement. For instance a coach may focus on emotional intelligence, leadership development, professional and/or personal development which may not be specific to career advancement but may be integral to career advancement.

There may be some overlap in the two roles but the intent or purpose differs.

MEntoring typically involves a dyiad in which the mentor has travelled a similar journey of the mentee... and is providing guidance on that journey.  A coach's role is to help the person follow their own path through critical thinking, refelction and the co-construction of a desired reality!  Coaching can be goal based, solution based, or for the purpose of meaning-making,.

Thank you all for your contributions. The nuances given are very interesting.

Gracias Leticia