1. What were your motives for helping this person?
A Saudi female came to me for advice regarding her career path. She wanted to move away from a pure administrative role and start developing as a specialist. My motive was to help her set realistic career goals, make informed decisions and create a plan that would help her be successful as a professional.
2. Did you benefit from this relationship in any way? How?
I also learned a lot about the local culture and way of thinking.
3. What was your role in the helping relationship? In what way do you think you helped this person? Looking back, is there anything that you might have done differently?
My role was to help her understand what she really wanted to achieve and then map the how. My attitude was both supportive but also trying to set some realistic expectations. I helped her realize that her lack of University degree would always be an obstacle in that very specialized field. I also encouraged her to discuss with a similar jobholder to understand the milestones needed to become a specialist in that particular area.
Yes, dig a bit deeper on her motivations to become a specialist in that particular field. My sense was that she mainly cared about promotion rather than being enthusiastic about the field itself.
4. Was there anything that this person did, said, or believed that you did not agree with? How did you react?
Yes, she wanted to get a promotion without having the necessary skills and knowledge for the next level. I remained supportive but with honestly tried to manage her expectations and explained that a lack of degree in that field would always be an obstacle in that career path and according to the University’s promotion policy.
5. Did you learn anything from this relationship?
I learned that being honest in a supportive can be very useful to people.