To me, professionalism is awareness and re-evaluation. It is active and grows with each experience. It's empathy and advocacy. Clarification and forgiveness. Informed best intention and trust of compassion when a mistake is made. A working relationship built on trust whose responsibility is on the person in power to check themselves for bias or hurtful language.
Candice, I really like your inclusion of "a working relationship built on trust." My best professional relationships have been authentic human relationship -- not necessarily personal relationships, but relationships grounded in a sense of collaboration and teamwork with the resiliency to handle conflict and hurt (with either or both parties also ready and able to make amends when they caused hurt).
I also really appreciate you noted the person who has social power in the situation is responsible for the self-awareness to 1) not behave in a biased manner or 2) offer a meaningful apology when they have (without expectation of an outcome from the apology). In past professional experiences, I have found that part of the definition of professionalism -- which I share -- is often not included in practice in organizations' definition of "professionalism" ... which makes it very hard to have a "working relationship built on trust" in my experience!
I also really appreciate you noted the person who has social power in the situation is responsible for the self-awareness to 1) not behave in a biased manner or 2) offer a meaningful apology when they have (without expectation of an outcome from the apology). In past professional experiences, I have found that part of the definition of professionalism -- which I share -- is often not included in practice in organizations' definition of "professionalism" ... which makes it very hard to have a "working relationship built on trust" in my experience!
MC, thanks for pointing out authenticity. I think it's important for both parties to allow the space for a relationship to grow naturally and organically.
I also appreciated your point of not expecting something from apologizing, acknowledging it as a footnote of the offense of the topic/identity at hand.
I also appreciated your point of not expecting something from apologizing, acknowledging it as a footnote of the offense of the topic/identity at hand.
Candice, I love the idea of "trust of compassion when a mistake is made." I think that a lot of working in social work is relearning boundaries for different people and naturally mistakes happen (also, we are all human, so of course mistakes happen). But to handle those mistakes with grace--that is real professionalism.
Candice, I relate to what you're saying because thinking about my past work experiences, I have found that I have been uncomfortable often due to the nature of the work environment and how the person in power over me treated our relationship. It has fallen on my shoulders several times to speak up about how I was feeling, which didn't seem fair to me because what I felt uncomfortable about could have been avoided if the person in power had acted professionally and realised the boundaries they had crossed. So I think accountability is a huge aspect of professionalism, like you alluded to in your last sentence.