Why the Best Leaders Need Both
“An executive coach asks questions that help a leader find their own answers, while a mentor shares experience from having walked a similar road. The most effective executive coaches play both roles, knowing when each is needed.”
Early in my career I worked six thousand feet underground as an electrical engineer. Down there, nobody gets through a shift alone. You rely on the person beside you to notice what you can’t see, and to tell you straight when something is wrong.
I’ve been running businesses since 1990, and over that time I’ve coached and mentored a lot of leaders. One thing has become clearer every year: the higher you climb, the fewer people will tell you the truth.
The luxury most leaders don’t have
I’m fortunate. I often walk into the office and say, “I’ve been thinking...” and then bounce the idea off the team, especially our general manager, who has worked with me for twenty years. He knows the business, he knows me, and he has no hesitation in telling me when an idea doesn’t stack up.
Most leaders don’t have that. For many CEOs and business owners, voicing a half-formed idea starts the team acting on it, and sharing a doubt unsettles the people who depend on them. So they carry their biggest questions alone. Should I restructure? Is this the right person for the role? Am I still the right person for mine?
An executive coach and mentor gives them that sounding board from outside, someone with no internal politics, no stake in the outcome and no reason to say what they want to hear.
Why it matters more now
When I started in business, information was scarce. Today leaders are buried in data, opinions, podcasts and AI tools that will produce a strategy in seconds. What’s in short supply isn’t advice, it’s judgement: the ability to step back, filter the noise and decide what actually matters.
The pace has changed too. Strategies that once held for five years now need rethinking in eighteen months. Teams are spread across offices and homes. And many leaders were promoted for excellence in their craft, the engineer, the lawyer or the broker, only to find that leading people is an entirely different job.
The difference between a coach and a mentor
The two words are often used interchangeably. They shouldn’t be.
A coach asks. Coaching assumes the leader can find the answer, given the right questions and space to think. A coach helps them get clear on where they want to go, see their own patterns, and do what they said they would do. A coach doesn’t need to have played your exact game.
I learnt that coaching my daughters’ soccer teams. I hadn’t played soccer since primary school, but I’ve played hockey all my life, and I’m still playing masters hockey in my sixties. What transferred wasn’t knowledge of soccer. It was an understanding of game form and structure: space, movement, shape and how a team works together. The skill of coaching is in the process.
A mentor shares. Mentoring draws on experience. A mentor has walked a similar road and can say, “I’ve seen this before, and here’s what happened.”
Some of my best personal mentors did something more valuable than give advice. They were a sounding board, and often a mirror. They reflected back what I was actually doing, not what I thought I was doing, and that was frequently the moment things changed.
Each role has a weakness on its own. Pure coaching can leave a leader circling a question that an experienced person could answer in five minutes. Pure mentoring can turn into the mentor solving problems the leader needed to work through, leaving them dependent rather than stronger.
Why a great one plays both roles
The real skill is knowing which role the moment calls for.
When a leader is wrestling with their own direction, values or confidence, I coach. Those answers have to be theirs, or they won’t hold under pressure. When they’re facing something I’ve faced, a capital raise, a board under strain, a key person leaving, a business that’s busy but not growing, I mentor. It would waste their time to ask clever questions while holding back what I know.
Often one conversation moves between the two. A leader brings a decision. I ask questions until the real issue surfaces, hold up the mirror, share what I’ve seen work and fail, and then hand the decision back. The decision stays with the leader, but it’s a better informed one.
Structure makes the difference
A sounding board on its own can drift into pleasant conversation. That’s why coaching and mentoring need discipline as well as trust.
I call it disciplined optimism. Optimism matters, because leaders need to believe a better destination is possible. Discipline is what gets them there. Like a pilot, you never reach your destination in one straight line. You make a series of small corrections, and each session is one more of them.
In 2013, training for a marathon, I discovered two blocked arteries and ended up with two cardiac stents. It forced me to ask a question I now ask every leader I work with: where do you actually want to go, not where has momentum been carrying you?
Asking that question properly takes a coach. Answering it well often takes a mentor who has been there.
Find your sounding board
Not every leader has a general manager of twenty years down the corridor. If you’re carrying the big questions alone, it doesn’t have to stay that way.
Explore one to one executive coaching and mentoring at www.raelbricker.com/coach
What is the difference between a coach and a mentor?
A coach asks questions to help a leader find their own answers and hold themselves accountable. A mentor shares experience and lessons from having faced similar challenges.
Can an executive coach also be a mentor?
Yes. The most effective executive coaches play both roles, coaching when the answer must come from the leader, and mentoring when their own experience can save the leader time and mistakes.
Why do CEOs need an external sounding board?
Senior leaders often can’t think out loud with their team without triggering action or uncertainty. An external coach and mentor offers honest feedback with no internal politics or stake in the outcome.
Who is Rael Bricker?
Rael Bricker is a Perth-based executive coach, mentor and Certified Speaking Professional who has run businesses since 1990. He created the RISE Framework and the philosophy of disciplined optimism.
