A coach talks to you, a mentor talks with you, and a sponsor talks about you. Each can play a valuable role in your career growth. What's the difference between these roles? - A coach provides guidance for your development, often focused on soft skills (e.g., active listening). - A mentor informally or formally helps you navigate your career, providing guidance for career choices and decisions. Mentors can also help guide you through specific technical (e.g. performance) or strategic (e.g. decision making) topics they may have expertise in. - A sponsor is a senior leader or other person who uses their influence to help open doors and opportunities for you (e.g. helping you/your work get higher visibility in the company) Ideally, your coach, mentor or sponsor is someone that takes pride in your progress and success. You really want folks working with you who want to celebrate your growth. We recently discussed this topic in "Effective methods for developing peers and leveling up your mentorship skills" with Inés Sombra, Ana Margarita Medina, Vanessa Huerta Granda and Javier Cardenete Morales: https://lnkd.in/ehzEqdUs I also wrote more about the differences between coaches, sponsors and mentors as well as how to find a great engineering mentor or become one in my write-up on LeadDev: https://lnkd.in/eUmjiCJF. I tried to lean on my experience at Google where applicable. #softwareengineering #productivity #leadership
I'm a leadership coach but my job is not to talk to you. My job is to listen to you, reflect back and ask questions that will help you discover what makes this a challenge for you. Then work with you on possibilities of approach to resolve or advance your challenge.
I wonder if “a coach talks to you” would actually be better phrased as “a coach listens to you.” Executive coaches might “talk to you” more of the time, but most good coaches do way more listening than talking, from what I’ve seen. What has your experience been?
This describes a much more active coaching role, than I see practiced in Germany. A lot of “coaches” here do not provide guidance, they only ask questions. Don’t get me wrong, questions can result in guidance… but being able to give real guidance must be based on experience on the side of the coach. And too many coaches lack that domain experience. They have never been developers, never been product managers, never been leaders themselves. Without that experience how can they actually provide guidance and be a good coach?
A coach doesn't talk to you or tell you what to do; a coach observe, listen, analyse and works with you to develop all the skills or tools you need to advance and navigate your life, career, health and so on. Nowadays, the roles of mentors and coaches are overlapping, especially in the career coaching domain.
This is a great recap Addy! 👏🏻 I would also add that while a coach can (but doesn't have to be) in a similar domain, a mentor is usually someone who will be in the same domain and will share industry knowledge and/or technical advice. There's also a big difference in the amount of direction you provide: a mentor provides advice (problem solving is almost outsourced to the mentor), and a coach usually helps a coachee self-reflect and problem-solve on their own.
Who listens to you?
In my observation the people who receive these gifts tend to possess a pedigree which the giver seeks to benefit from: why would you mentor just anyone? Some excellent group mentorship programs exist, largely to counter the pedigree dilemma I've mentioned. Therefore, I note that this merely perpetuates the current systems of power. Look, you are assigned a coach, a mentor chooses you (if they are a mentor, in fact), and people promote those who will make them look good. (Those people are already marked, however, usually with pedigree.)
As a coach myself I wouldn’t ever say that I talk to people more with people.. But even more so I would say I listen to you then ask questions based off what you told me.
Addy Osmani, there are a lot of great answers below to correct the Coach's focus. Please let me help you with Mentoring and Mentors as we define at Collective Brains. Mentorship is primarily a relationship that both Mentees and Mentors will learn from it. It has many layers, and being a sponsor is a possible one if that is what the mentee is searching. Mentors will draw from their expertise and experience (having been there and done that) to help you acquire new knowledge and skills and help you navigate your career. Mentors can be Coaches, Sponsors, and Connectors if that is what the Mentees need. I hope that helps clarify it!
Global Process Improvement Leader
1yCoaching in a European culture is something different! In a global approach this post is misleading. As a coach I don‘t give guidance, I let my coachee find his/ her own way by activating his/ her resources.