Doctoral supervision success stories: Reflection on motivations and effects

Successful doctoral supervision entails guiding, mentoring, and facilitating a supervisee's intellectual and professional development through fostering satisfaction, progress, retention, effective communication, mutual understanding, and supportive relationships. However, this aspect of supervision remains underexplored in practice, and the traditional sink-or-swim model persists in Ethiopian higher education institutions (HEIs), where supervisees often receive minimal guidance and/or face pressure to conform to prescriptive approaches. This study has examined my personal reflections on successful PhD supervision, focusing on my experiences supporting a supervisee and identifying the key factors and strategies that contributed to this success. Using the Autonomy, Belongingness, and Competence (ABC) framework, the study has identified that a shift from a controlling to a need-supportive supervisory approach grounded in Self-Determination Theory (SDT), is the catalyst for transforming a doctoral supervision into a resounding success. It has also revealed that the ABC needs are not isolated but synergistic. They function as an integrated system where gains in one domain reinforce the others, creating a virtuous cycle of motivation and growth. The findings suggest that effective doctoral supervision transcends conventional models and rigid methodologies. It demands emotional, intelligence, and motivational strategies; and adaptive communication, underpinned by ABC framework, which provides a practical roadmap for enhancing PhD students' satisfaction, well-being, and timely completion rates. • Presents a novel success-story narrative on doctoral supervision, countering the dominant deficit-based literature. • Provides empirical validation of Self-Determination Theory (SDT) in an Ethiopian higher education context. • Identifies a transformative shift from controlling to need-supportive supervision using the ABC (Autonomy, Belongingness, Competence) framework. • Reveals the synergistic interplay between ABC needs, showing how they create a virtuous cycle of motivation. • Offers a practical model for supervisory change with concrete strategies for enhancing student motivation and well-being. • Highlights the catalytic role of SDT-based training in transforming supervisory practice and improving PhD completion.