“Two sides of the same coin?” Coaching and mentoring and the agentic role of context

Our article depicts and interrogates the claims for seeing coaching and mentoring as being distinct from each other, and rather suggests that context is agentic in determining which aspects of these two helping orientations are likely to be used by practitioners. To start with, our article traces the development of coaching and mentoring as two separate discourses. Traditionally, coaching has been associated with a shorter term performance focus, with the coach portrayed as a process- rather than a content knowledge-based expert. By contrast, mentoring has a longer-term holistic focus, where the mentor has direct experience and knowledge in the setting that the mentee is operating in. Then, we discuss some limitations of seeking conceptual distinctiveness in purely theoretical terms, including accentuating differences of practices that cannot easily be disentangled from each other in practice. Therefore, on the basis of a case study, where coaching and mentoring behaviors are used by leaders and managers, we argue that context plays an agentic role and influences which of the helping orientations is used by practitioners. We conclude that, context being multifaceted, it leads to a kaleidoscope of coaching/mentoring behaviors, which supports a practice-based approach to the debate.