Helping Conversations: Coaching vs. Mentoring

Coaching vs. Mentorship: A Visual Guide to Two Powerful Roles

When it comes to personal and professional development, the terms coaching and mentorship are often used interchangeably but they’re not the same. This graphic by Timothy Tiryaki breaks down the distinctions and overlaps between these two transformative roles:

Coaching focuses on cultivating autonomy, empowerment, and critical thinking. Coaches ask powerful questions, facilitate reflection, and help set goals while remaining neutral and non-directive.

Mentorship, on the other hand, leans into storytelling, experience sharing, and career guidance. Mentors offer advice, model behaviors, and transfer knowledge and culture.

Shared competencies like empathy, trust-building, active listening, curiosity, and meaning-making form the heart of both practices.