bout de papier, Vol. 3, No. 2 (1985) — Summer 1985 // Été 1985, p. 28
In our last issue John Halstead looked at the perils of contemporary diplomacy. He concludes his piece on Today’s Diplomacy with a look at the qualities required by the current diplomat diplomat.
The most important resources for an effective diplomacy are the human resources. In spite of his changing role, the qualities needed by a good diplomat have remained remarkably constant and apply equally well to all the fields in which he has to operate.
First of all, a diplomat must have the qualities required to deal effectively with people, to create credibility rather than distrust, to foster cooperation rather than confrontation and to put oneself in other people’s shoes. For this he must have an unusual combination of integrity and adaptability, consistency and tolerance, a keen judgment of character and a willingness to learn the language of the host country.
Secondly, a diplomat must be able to deal successfully with unfamiliar and unexpected situations. This requires the intellectual curiosity to absorb a new environment, the skill to analyze the determining factors of a situation and the skill to synthesize them with the appropriate weighting. Having done that he must be able to anticipate contingencies and plan timely action by deciding on, or recommending, the least unsatisfactory course under circumstances where like as not the choice is not between a good solution and a bad one but between a number of more or less unsatisfactory choices.
And finally, a diplomat must have the capacity to communicate ideas precisely and concisely, to marshall arguments coherently and persuasively and to negotiate skillfully and patiently. With all this he must remain modest and free of prejudice. “Et surtout pas trop de zèle”,, as Talleyrand said
These qualities are both more important and more difficult to acquire than knowlege. But the knowledge a diplomat must have to do his job competently is nevertheless impressive and it should be both general and specialized, not one or the other. A generalist who knows no subject in sufficient depth to deal with it satisfactorily is useless as a diplomat, as is a specialist who cannot put his specialized knowledge into the broader context.
In my own view a young diplomat, after some general training, should start by getting a solid grounding in one of the functional or regional areas and should become more generalized as he gains experience and climbs “the ladder of promotion. To accomplish this requires a comprehensive career development plan, professional training programs and opportunities for self-development through research and sabbaticals. It also requires financial and staffing resources.
What about management? There is undoubtedly a need for modern management skills and sound management principles but they are means, not ends, and they are meaningful in the diplomatic context only at the extent they serve the ends of formulating and implementing foreign policy. In my view the two most important forms of management in this context are the “management of international relations” and personnel management. The diplomatic process is not a matter of in and out baskets, organizational charts and management procedures but a political and economic dynamic intended to achieve certain strategic goals. If it is not that, a country’s diplomacy will lack the necessary sense of purpose and direction.
In the last analysis it is the human resources which are the most important to the crafting of a country’s diplomacy. To make the most of them requires careful recruiting, training, guiding and motivating, and clear and consistent policy direction is essential for this. The effectiveness of any foreign office will be in direct relations to the quality of its diplomats and the crucial qualities are reliability and credibility.
To quote Harold Nicholson is his classic work on the subject, “Good diplomacy is akin to sound banking and depends on credit.”
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 3, No. 2 (1985) — Summer 1985 // Été 1985, p. 28. Read the rest of this issue →
