Leading Diplomats Through the Holidays: A Guide to Self-Care

How to help your empathetic team members care for themselves as much as they care for others

Image from 16personalities.com

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The end of the year brings unique challenges for leaders managing Diplomat personality types – those naturally empathetic team members who often put others’ needs before their own. While these team members are typically your strongest champions for workplace harmony and meaningful collaboration, they’re also the most likely to experience burnout during high-stress periods.

Why? Because they’re carrying more than their share of the holiday weight. Beyond their regular tasks, they’re processing everyone’s end-of-year stress, mediating heightened tensions, and trying to maintain team spirits – often at the expense of their own well-being.

As their leader, you’re in a unique position to help them maintain their valuable contributions while protecting their emotional energy.

Today, we’ll help you identify your Diplomat team members and support them through the holidays. We’ll suggest practical, actionable ways to promote self-care that fit into the real world of deadlines, targets, and holiday chaos. We’ll first look at Diplomats as a whole and then explore the nuances of each Diplomat personality type – INFJs (Advocates), INFPs (Mediators), ENFJs (Protagonists), and ENFPs (Campaigners).

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But first – how do you know if you have a Diplomat on your team? Here are some signs to watch out for. 👇

How to Spot a Diplomat Team Member:

• Frames feedback and suggestions in terms of how decisions will impact people

• Becomes more engaged when discussions turn to future possibilities and potential for positive change

• Smooths over conflicts in meetings, often by finding common ground between opposing viewpoints

• Demonstrates skill at explaining complex ideas through stories or metaphors that connect emotionally

• Raises questions about team morale and workplace culture in discussions

• Shows a pattern of connecting seemingly unrelated ideas or situations to reveal deeper meaning

• Expresses strong reactions to decisions that don’t align with their values, even if those values aren’t explicitly stated

Still not sure about a team member’s personality type? Use our free type-guesser tool to guesstimate it.

Read on to learn how to frame self-care when you lead Diplomat personality types. 👇

Helping Diplomats Thrive During Holiday Stress

During busy times like the holidays, Diplomats often carry an invisible emotional workload that most people don’t see – absorbing team tensions, anticipating interpersonal challenges, and working to maintain harmony while juggling their regular responsibilities.

When it comes to framing wellness for Diplomat team members, traditional approaches focused on time management or work-life boundaries often fall short. Instead, you’ll need to position self-care differently: as a way to help Diplomats keep doing what they do best – making meaningful contributions and supporting others.

The most effective leadership approach combines two important elements: