Jacinda Ardern: Dare to Lead with Humanity

We are waiting. More than 2,000 students, faculty, and community members are in the Brown University sports complex to hear her speak about leadership.

“I’ve never seen so many students show up for this annual lecture on leadership,” says a university staffer.

Are they interested in leadership? Or are they interested in what she believes and was able to accomplish?  Or are they looking for hope that leaders can be kind and strong, empathetic and decisive, optimistic and focused? That bravado, certainty, and confidence needn’t be the traits needed to lead?

It turns out, all of the above.

Jacinda Ardern, who became the prime minister of New Zealand at just 37 years old (2017-23) and is now a senior fellow at Harvard University, is known for her skilled handling of a live-streamed domestic terror attack against New Zealand’s Muslim community, a volcanic eruption, and the COVID pandemic.

Within two days of the attack on the Muslim community where 51 people were killed, New Zealand banned semi-automatic weapons. Her government’s swift actions during COVID-19 helped New Zealand achieve the lowest number of deaths of any developed country.

Also notable: she had a child during her second year in office.

Vibrant, positive, and humble, Ardern exudes optimism and realism. She tells us about not wanting to be prime minister, suppressing her imposter’s syndrome, constantly questioning what she could have done better or differently, and what she learned about leadership based on her experiences.

“We’re surrounded by large-scale issues that are not going away. We live in a fraught time. The fears of people are genuine.  Then there is fear that is politically motivated. Fear and blame are quick and easy pathways for political leaders not to act. I believe political leaders must park fear and blame and maintain hope and ambition.”

Change, she reminds us, doesn’t happen by blaming.

Rather it comes from involving people in creating solutions and being transparent. “When the public can see the rationale behind the decision, they are more likely to accept those decisions.”

She admitted that leading amid uncertainty is hard.  Making decisions during COVID, she said, was a constant choice between hard and hard. Yet, you have to keep moving forward.

 “There’s often an assumption in leadership that… we cannot reply, under any circumstance, with ‘I don’t know.’ But conceding we had knowledge gaps wasn’t just the truth, it was a critical path to building trust…Confidence in leaders comes from trust as much as competency. It is OK for a leader to say, ‘I don’t know.’ It is not OK to say, ‘I don’t know what to do.’”

Adern urged people to believe they can lead, to realize our capacity to lead is much greater than we think, and that we don’t need the same traits as current leaders in any field.

“We need more people who are willing to carve that fresh path of different styles of leadership in different occupations because otherwise, we will keep getting the same styles and the same decisions and the same thinking,” she urged. “Be willing to be a first. That will help the person who is second and third. And look for the people who don’t put their hands up. They bring the unexpected skills.”

In summary, she shared her view on the six most important 21st century leadership qualities:

1.       Fairness

2.       Kindness

3.       Empathy

4.       Bravery

5.       Curiosity

6.       Ambition

She leaves us with a renewed sense of what we should expect from our leaders and the confidence that we all can lead, especially if we lean on our humanity, courage, and curiosity.