What does it take to be an outstanding diplomat? Not that I’d put myself in that category, but I’ve met many role models at the UN and around the world. All it takes is character, skills, and expertise, and each aspect of these you can develop.
My suggestion would be to put down this magazine (or your device) and pick up Satow’s Diplomatic Practice.
Editor Sir Ivor Roberts and former PermRep to the UN Sir Emyr Jones-Parry added to the 8th edition of Advice to Diplomats. I’ve included some paraphrased snippets in what follows, drawing a little on my own experience and a lot on the examples of role models, including many outstanding diplomats I’ve met at the UN.
Imagine you’re sitting on a recruitment committee for a top diplomacy role.
You’re considering three essential (and overlapping) faces of diplomatic excellence: expertise, character, and skills.
In the limited time to discuss the candidates, which would you emphasize a little more? When I put that question on LinkedIn, 543 people responded:
• Expertise: 15%
• Skills: 26%
• Character: 58%
Four character traits
I’m assuming you have exemplary integrity and principles. Beyond those, the best candidate might show:
1. Kindness. At the heart of relationships: empathy, generosity, how you treat people. At the heart of diplomacy: a “service first” mentality. Do you look for those who can help you, or for those whom you can help?
2. Humility. Arriving in a new posting, it would be odd not to have a lot to learn and appreciate. Not all senior diplomats keep their ego in check.
3. Grit. To hold your nerve with resilience and a patient attitude.
4. Courage. That transforms civil servants from smooth cogs in the machine, to shifting its direction.
Sérgio de Mello’s bravery showed how presence matters by going to the problem, not by summoning it to Geneva. Dag Hammarskjöld, much admired for integrity and courage, showed how institutions gain authority when their leaders accept risk.
“The greatest regrets are what we didn’t do. Enjoy yourself, appreciate the privilege and take the opportunities.”
Four skills
Senior positions require leadership skills, not least supporting and enabling each team member. And, in addition:
1. Smart listening first. Beyond active listening, listening with an understanding of person, culture, and context.
“Advice to listen becomes even more important with experience. The more one has to say, the greater temptation to say it.”
2. Smart learning. Studying, engaging with experts, getting out of the diplomatic bubble, close to local people and away from government. Learning to adapt across cultures and languages, and unlocking ways of thinking.
“The best way to understand a country is to learn its language(s), and that way understand how people think and feel.”
3. Smart communicating. Listen, but you also need to negotiate, collaborate and influence. Your messages must resonate whether face to face, online, in a cable, at a speech, or in an article for UN Today.
“In critical circumstances don’t try to make your message more palatable.”
4. Analytical ability and strategic thinking. Learn from Talleyrand, whose cool pragmatism kept France at the table after Napoleon; and von Metternich, who engineered a century of relative great-power stability through system-thinking and coalition maintenance.
Can you respond to a crisis with Talleyrand’s pragmatism and Metternich’s imperturbability?
Three types of expertise
Famously, diplomats must be generalists. As Ambassador in Vietnam, I’d give a speech in the morning on corruption, host a lunch on education, in the afternoon a seminar on cyber threats, then in the evening discuss a football match on TV. UN roles can be even broader.
However, you also need expertise on:
1. The cultures you work in. A country and its people; or an international organization.
Insight into single-party states from North Korea and Vietnam gave me perspective on today’s Cuba. But to begin to understand, I had to get to know Cubans. Arriving at the UN, I found people living deep in the ecosystem for years. I could tell from their cynical humor and mildly haunted expressions. They understood what body does what, the internal politics, and the practical realities. I needed to learn from them.
“It is wise for the young diplomat to acknowledge that experience is the best ally of true talent.”
2. Specialization. Economics, consular work, trade… and an increasing demand in novel areas such as climate finance, migration, digital comms, and AI.
3. Diplomacy practice itself. Aspects with universal application: financial management, program planning, data analysis, and negotiation.
Others more specialized: protocol, jargon, and conventions.
I saw Cathy Ashton quietly develop the expertise she needed to build confidence among adversaries and lay the groundwork for nuclear talks. Mastery of quiet processes is the diplomacy superpower. You can develop all these qualities with support and tools. You’ll find many of those in the weekly gazette I launched last September at ambatlarge.substack.com
If you continue to serve with courage, make mistakes, and from them develop character, skills and expertise, you’ll continue to be an outstanding diplomat.
“The greatest regrets are what we didn’t do. Enjoy yourself, appreciate the privilege and take the opportunities.”