Picking a mentoring style that works
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Mentoring isn't a single skill—it's a set of distinct approaches, and using the right one at the right time is key to success. Research from organizational psychology and decades of workplace practice point to four dominant mentoring styles: directive, non-directive (coaching-style), collaborative, and situational/adaptive. Knowing when to use each is what makes a great mentor who genuinely helps mentees grow to their full potential.
Directive Mentoring: When Expertise Gaps Are Large
Directive mentoring is the “here's what to do and why” style. The mentor draws on deep experience to give clear guidance, course correct mistakes quickly, and transfer specific knowledge or techniques.
Best suited for: Occasions where a CXO or a senior leader moves from one sector to another sector or category, less familiar to them, but where they have to hit the ground running. Eg there was a senior executive who moved from leading Ice creams in Unilever to head the fashion giant Gucci. Clearly he was hired for his outstanding leadership skills, but would have needed mentoring to transition from consumer goods to luxury fashion and retail.
Watch-outs: When it’s overused, directive mentoring creates bias, transferred from the mentor to mentee. As you are doing a “crash course” rather than absorb organically over a period of time, it could lead to a narrower world view, seen through a specific, mentor prescribed, lens. It can also feel condescending to someone who's more capable than the mentor assumes.
Non-Directive (Coaching-Style) Mentoring: When Competence Exists but Confidence or Clarity Doesn't
This style flips the directive model. Instead of giving answers, the mentor asks questions—“What have you tried?” “What do you think is causing this?” “What would happen if you did X?”—to help the mentee reach their own conclusions.
Best suited for: Mentees who already have the skills but need to develop judgment, confidence, or self-awareness. Here, the need is for a thinking partner who helps them see their own reasoning clearly, and not necessarily a solution-provider.
Watch-outs: Non-directive mentoring frustrates people who genuinely don't know the answer and need help with framing the problem and solutioning, not questions. Asking “What do you think you should do?” to someone who is floundering, may be unhelpful beyond a point. It is also a longer and more uphill path to tread.
Collaborative Mentoring: When the Relationship Is Between Peers or Near-Peers
Collaborative mentoring treats the relationship as a genuine exchange—both people bring expertise, and the mentor is as much a sounding board and co-problem-solver as a guide. This is common in peer mentoring, cross-functional mentoring (e.g., a marketing lead mentoring a product manager), or reverse mentoring, where a junior employee mentors a senior one on something like new technology or emerging cultural trends.
Best suited for: Situations where expertise is genuinely distributed rather than concentrated in the mentor. A senior leader mentoring a rising star on strategy while the rising star mentors them on digital tools is a two-way exchange, not a hierarchical passing down of knowledge.
Watch-outs: Without a clear structure, collaborative mentoring can drift into just being “work friends” without real developmental intent. It requires both parties to be honest about what they don't know, which not everyone is comfortable with.
Situational (Adaptive) Mentoring: The Meta-Skill
The most effective mentors don't commit permanently to one style—they diagnose the mentee's competence and confidence on a given task and adjust. This mirrors the logic of Situational Leadership theory (Hersey and Blanchard): a mentor should be more directive when competence is low, and more hands-off as competence and confidence grow, even with the same person, across different tasks.
For example, a mentee CEO could come from a different region, and may need Directive mentoring in the country’s culture and values. The same mentee could benefit from a coaching style of mentorship when it comes to transferring skills across the regions. And similarly, might be a reverse-mentor for educating the mentor on the region to which they belong.
Best suited for: Long-term mentoring relationships spanning multiple skill areas, and any relationship the mentor wants to keep responsive rather than static.
Watch-outs: Switching styles too abruptly, or without explaining why, can feel inconsistent or even manipulative to the mentee. The best adaptive mentors are transparent about the shift: “I'm going to give you more direct feedback on this one since it's time-sensitive, but I want your take first on the strategy piece.”
Matching Style to Situation: A Quick Framework
A useful way to decide in the moment is to ask two questions:
• How much does the mentee already know or feel confident about this specific task? Low competence and low confidence call for directive support. High competence but low confidence calls for coaching and encouragement. High competence and high confidence calls for collaboration or simply staying out of the way.
• How much does it cost to get this wrong? High-stakes, time-sensitive, or safety-critical situations favor directive mentoring regardless of the mentee's general skill level, because the cost of a mentee “learning by doing” is too high. Lower-stakes situations are better opportunities to let mentees struggle productively and build judgment.
The Common Mistake
The single most common mentoring failure isn't picking the wrong style—it's picking one style and using it for everything. A mentor who is naturally directive tends to stay directive even once the mentee is ready for more autonomy, which is counter-productive. A mentor who prefers coaching-style questions can leave a genuinely lost mentee spinning in circles when the mentee just needs help in a complex situation.
Therefore, the ask isn't mastery of one mentoring style—it's the ability to diagnose the situation the mentee is in, adapt the mentoring style accordingly and share the approach with the mentee, so that there is comfort and receptiveness on their part. This will set the tone and foundation for a productive mentoring relationship.
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