Former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Leading with Compassion While Taking Action

Summary

Making Space with Hoda Kotb: Episode Summary Episode: Former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Leading with Compassion While Taking Action
Release Date: June 11, 2025

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of Making Space with Hoda Kotb, Hoda engages in an intimate and insightful conversation with Jacinda Ardern, the former Prime Minister of New Zealand. At 37, Ardern became the youngest Prime Minister in New Zealand's 150-year history, leading with empathy, strength, and decisive action. Throughout the discussion, Ardern shares her journey of self-discovery, the challenges she faced while in office, and the principles that guided her leadership style. The episode is enriched with personal anecdotes, notable quotes, and profound insights into the resilience of the human spirit.

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Early Life and Political Journey

Ardern begins by reflecting on her upbringing in New Zealand, describing her childhood with a single word: "Barefoot" ([10:11]). This term encapsulates the freedom and connection to nature that defined her early years. Growing up in a dairy farming community, Ardern emphasizes the strong work ethic instilled by her parents—her father, a policeman, and her mother, who worked multiple jobs after farm life.

She recounts her first foray into the workforce at the age of 12, delivering pamphlets, and later working at a fish and chip shop—a quintessential New Zealand job ([15:07]). Ardern's political consciousness was shaped by witnessing the economic turmoil of the 1980s in her town of Morinsville, where deregulation led to widespread unemployment and social issues. This environment ignited her sense of fairness and propelled her towards politics ([16:00]).

At 28, Ardern became a Member of Parliament (MP) after a serendipitous series of events. Initially considering a career in the police, she was encouraged to join the Labour Party list, ultimately leading her to Parliament ([25:43]). Her ascent was marked by a relentless commitment to positive change over political maneuvering.

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Leadership Style: Compassion Meets Action

Ardern's leadership is characterized by a unique blend of empathy, kindness, and resolute action. She challenges the traditional perception of politicians needing to display unwavering strength by advocating for the inclusion of vulnerability and empathy in leadership roles.

Notable Quote:
"I want you to push through that [imposter syndrome]. It doesn't mean you have to advertise it, but I want you to push through that." ([05:22])

Ardern discusses how her approach was initially met with skepticism, including criticism for not fitting the conventional political mold. However, her dedication to compassionate leadership resonated deeply with the public and her peers.

When asked about setting a narrative for her party, Ardern explains how she and her team committed to a governance style that focused on assurance, positivity, and addressing issues without personal attacks:

Notable Quote:
"We are going to be relentlessly positive. We are going to talk about what's possible, not about just everything that is wrong." ([46:59])

This approach not only redefined her party’s image but also fostered a more inclusive and supportive political environment.

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Handling Crises with Empathy and Decisive Action

Ardern's tenure was marked by significant crises, including the Christchurch mosque shootings and the COVID-19 pandemic. Her response to these events illustrated her leadership philosophy in action.

Christchurch Mosque Massacre ([49:35])

The tragic mass shooting in Christchurch tested Ardern's leadership profoundly. She emphasizes that empathy must be coupled with action:

Notable Quote:
"You cannot have an empathetic response that then does not seek to resolve the issue that has caused that distress or that crisis." ([49:35])

In response to the shootings, Ardern swiftly implemented a ban on AR-15s within 27 days, showcasing her ability to translate compassion into tangible policy changes. This decisive action received overwhelming support, with 119 out of 120 members of Parliament voting in favor of the ban.

COVID-19 Pandemic ([51:43])

During the pandemic, Ardern navigated New Zealand through two distinct phases. Initially, she focused on alleviating fear and uncertainty by being transparent about what was known and unknown about the virus. This transparency built public trust and confidence:

Notable Quote:
"We were sharing all of that and that we still had a plan actually, that built confidence, people trusted us." ([51:43])

Ardern argues that true confidence in leadership comes from honesty and a clear, adaptable plan rather than the facade of complete certainty.

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Resignation and Personal Reflections

After five and a half years as Prime Minister, Ardern stepped down, a decision rooted in self-awareness and the recognition of her own limits. She clarifies that her resignation was not due to burnout but a conscious choice to ensure effective leadership:

Notable Quote:
"I've been in this job five years... Sometimes you have to recognise when you've been through crisis, you have to recognise what you need to lead in crisis. And I don't have enough in the tank anymore." ([53:50])

Ardern addresses misconceptions surrounding her departure, emphasizing the importance of personal well-being and the responsibility of leaders to maintain their capacity to lead effectively.

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Optimism for the Future

In discussing her current life post-politics, Ardern expresses a steadfast optimism about the future. She rejects the notion that optimism is naive, positioning it instead as an active belief in the potential for positive change:

Notable Quote:
"Optimism is an expectation. It's an active belief and hope and aspiration that things could be better." ([55:33])

Ardern remains hopeful, inspired by the enduring optimism of younger generations and her belief in the continual improvement of society through dedicated leadership.

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Conclusion

Jacinda Ardern’s conversation with Hoda Kotb offers a profound exploration of compassionate leadership intertwined with strength and decisive action. Her experiences highlight how empathy can drive meaningful change and how resilience is crucial in the face of adversity. This episode serves as an inspiring testament to the power of leading with both heart and determination, leaving listeners with valuable lessons on personal growth and effective leadership.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• "I want you to push through that [imposter syndrome]." ([05:22])
• "We are going to be relentlessly positive. We are going to talk about what's possible, not about just everything that is wrong." ([46:59])
• "You cannot have an empathetic response that then does not seek to resolve the issue that has caused that distress or that crisis." ([49:35])
• "We were sharing all of that and that we still had a plan actually, that built confidence, people trusted us." ([51:43])
• "I've been in this job five years... Sometimes you have to recognise when you've been through crisis, you have to recognise what you need to lead in crisis. And I don't have enough in the tank anymore." ([53:50])
• "Optimism is an expectation. It's an active belief and hope and aspiration that things could be better." ([55:33])

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Final Thoughts

This episode of Making Space with Hoda Kotb provides an enriching narrative of Jacinda Ardern’s leadership journey, emphasizing the harmonious blend of empathy and action. For listeners seeking inspiration and deeper understanding of compassionate leadership, this conversation is both enlightening and motivating.

Transcript

[A]

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[A]

Wow.

[B]

Well, hello.

[A]

Hi there.

[B]

How are we feeling?

[A]

Well, the house lights are up, which is a little different than usual, but so intimate. Hello everyone.

[B]

I love it. I love it. I'm so looking forward to this conversation with you, Jacinda. I love the dedication of your book. I know you guys all have A copy Internet says you dedicate this to the criers, the worriers and the huggers. Please raise your hand if you are a crier, a worrier or a hugger. I think of most people, why that dedication? Why did you start that way?

[A]

You know, I thought a lot about the dedication and I looked through a few books and saw that the expectation usually is that it's dedicated to, you know, loved ones and your family. And I remember thinking, oh, if I'm not gonna dedicate this to Clark, I probably need to tell him about that. And so I did. I said to him, look, I'm thinking about doing this. He didn't seem at all concerned. And so for me, the dedication was a way of doing two things. Almost committing a book to everyone's perhaps 14 year old self, but also to their present. And after I left parliament in New Zealand, I gave a. We give this thing called a valedictory speech. So when you start in parliament, it's very traditional. You give what's called a maiden speech and then when you depart, you give a valedictory. And it's like an extended Oscars speech. But in politics, and in that speech, I talked at the end about the different types of leadership that I believe that you can bring to places that sometimes feel unexpected and so that you could be, in politics, a crier, a warrior and a hugger. And I got such a response to that that I thought, maybe people need more than a speech. Maybe they need a book.

[B]

Maybe they need a book. We do need a book.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Let's talk about your different kind of power, which I think is fascinating. And you lead with something that I think most women who've climbed any kind of ladder, whether it's political or corporate or whatever, have tried to shove and bury. It's the side of us that feels insecure. Not enough. I'm not ready. I'm not good enough. Usually those things, we fake it till we make it. We try to pretend you're leading with the, hey, this is me all open.

[A]

I do, however, have to admit that that won't always be a place that people feel they can be in. And I am not out here to preach that you should wear your imposter syndrome on your sleeve because there are some places where that may not be to advantage. But I want you to know that if you feel that internally, you feel that, I want you to push through that. It doesn't mean you have to advertise it, but I want you to push through that. And in part, it's probably because I heard enough people in my life who once they were in a position where they felt comfortable talking about their own confidence gap, that when I heard them talking about it, I thought, wow, that person is amazing if they feel that way. How many other people feel that way? And therefore the fact that I do might be actually more normal than I think and perhaps it shouldn't be a barrier. The first person I ever heard talk about it was my high school social studies teacher.

[B]

Oh, really?

[A]

And he. He was incredible, the best teacher I had. So him telling me about this idea was so important to me and so that's why now I talk about it. I have nothing to lose by doing so, but perhaps others might gain.

[B]

And I love expressing that feeling. What I find so interesting and fascinating is to be a world leader and to lead with kindness, because often world leaders are seen as leading with, we've got to have strength, we've got to show power, we have to show that we're strong and we're not vulnerable. You did it the other way.

[A]

And they do. And I think, you know, to Pep's, have some grace towards those leaders who might be operating within that mould. That's probably because they've come up for a system that's incentivised that. And there is this, I think, unfortunately, a bit of an unconscious expectation that that's what politicians are or need to be to succeed. And I talk a little bit about this exercise in the book, this exercise I used to do when I was back in New Zealand. And I can't remember how it started, but I remember there being a bit of a sense that I didn't fit the political mold. Cause I came in when I was 28 years old. I didn't own a suit and I didn't buy a suit. And so I probably didn't necessarily present as a politician. In fact, I remember when people would say to me, oh, you don't look like a politician. I'd be so chuffed. And so I went into a school one day and I was talking a bit about what I did and I could just tell from the tone of the questions that there. There was this expectation that somehow it's just a bit abnormal, not unfair. And so I remember saying to them, just close your eyes, close your eyes and imagine in your mind's eye a politician. Just imagine a politician. I want to hear. I want you to think of them talking to you, giving a speech, you know, in front of you, you know, what are the arms doing? What do they look like? What Are they wearing, how do they sound? How do they make you feel? And then when they opened their eyes, I wrote down on the whiteboard everything they saw. And the physical description, as you can imagine, was, you know, fairly disparaging. I guess it wasn't exactly diverse. It was white, old, bald, gray male. And there was no blame there. Statistically in New Zealand at the time, that was correct. But then we got onto the physical traits and it was confident, loud, brash.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Then it got harsher as he went along. Liar. You know, and I looked at that list and I thought, I don't feel like I fit any of that. So if we say to them, if that's your expectation of a water politician, is, are any of you gonna go out and be one?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because you already don't fit the mold.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And this is probably a little more complicated, but are you gonna vote for someone who isn't that? Because you've decided that that's probably who you need to be to be successful.

[B]

That's interesting.

[A]

And that was probably the thing that was more confronting for me. Do I need to change who I am to fit that mould in order to be successful? Or do I just stay as I am and see how it goes? And so that was a very early experience I remember having.

[B]

I wanna get to all of that because anyone who enters a new environment sometimes feels like you gotta change to fit, you gotta put on a suit of armor. Before I get to that. Cause I'm dying to. I want to hear a little bit about what made you who you are. So we can understand that when you got into government, just how you operated. So if you were going to describe your childhood in a single word or phrase, how would you describe your upbringing?

[A]

Barefoot. And for any New Zealander in the room, they're like, oh, yance tracks. And I think for me that kind of captures the freedom of childhood in New Zealand and the fact that you are so connected to your surrounds and the natural environment. You know, you never live far from a beach in New Zealand. If you live in a dairy farming area like me, you know, most of your friends farm and you've been in the milking shed at some point, you know, it's just that kind of environment, you know, and because of that, your parents, at least when I was growing, it's kind of that mentality of, off you go, get out from under my feet, go out and be outside and I'll see you at dinner, you know. So barefoot would probably be how I would describe it.

[B]

I always ask Anybody I interview this question and it seems to reveal something about them. So I'll ask you too. So close your eyes and imagine your childhood bedroom where you were when you were a little girl.

[A]

Okay, wait. Ensuring a therapy session. Is this a space? Basic. I mean it's not quite a couch, but. Okay.

[B]

That's so good. Okay, picture what's on the walls, if.

[A]

You had any in my children bedroom. What age are we?

[B]

Do you have any books? Think about your sheets. Your bed. Was it neat? Messy? Describe what you see.

[A]

Okay. So am I. What. What age am I?

[B]

You're.

[A]

The posters came later.

[B]

Well, I don't know. 12? 10. 12?

[A]

Because by 14 it was Keanu Reeves. Speed.

[B]

Oh, Keanu Reeves was your. Was your crush.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

Okay. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

All right.

[B]

Yeah, Good to know.

[A]

I feel that's forgivable. Is that, I mean, Speed. My. So as a kid for a while, I had a piano in my room. Even though I could not play, there was nowhere else in the house for it to go. Sounds much more grandiose than it was. My room was periodically quite messy, except for the times where I'd be asked to clean it up and then everything would go in the wardrobe. And my dad, my father is wonderful and I think, I hope you get a real sense of him in the book. But he had a couple of little quirky parenting things he'd do that related to mess. And one of them was I wasn't very good at cleaning up the toasted sandwich maker or the porridge pot. And is a toasted sandwich maker a thing here?

[B]

A toasted sandwich maker. Will you make a grilled cheese in it? Yeah, yeah, we can cut those.

[A]

So in New Zealand, a common toasted sandwich is cheese and spaghetti.

[B]

Oh, okay.

[A]

The New Zealanders know. New Zealand is wrapped spaghetti. Comes in a can. It gets worse. It comes in a can. You put it in the grilled cheese, you grill it and I would leave it and there'd be spaghetti hanging down. Cheese. And so my dad one day had enough of this messy grilled cheesemaker. So he put. He went down to my room and he put it, spaghetti and all in my bed.

[B]

In your bed?

[A]

I never left it out again last time. So it was. Yeah, a touch on the messy side.

[B]

So your dad was a police officer. Your mom worked in your school cafeteria, is that right? Correct. What did they teach you about work ethic? What did you learn from them?

[A]

You know, my dad, he. Before he became a policeman, he joined the New Zealand police. Very young age, something like 19. And before that he worked in a mine in his hometown. And before that his father had a drain digging business, digging the drains around farmland in the area I grew up in. And he did that from the time that he was young. My mother grew up on a farm. So everyone mucks in, you know, she's out milking and helping. And then from the day that she left home, working often multiple jobs. So my parents had a very strong work ethic. And so my first job was. I would have been about 12 years old and it was delivering pamphlets around my town. Little did I know I had a lifetime delivering pamphlets ahead of me. And then eventually, and I talk about this as well, eventually, mum just picked me up, took me downtown and sent me door to door up the main street of Morinsville to find a job. And she did that the day before my 14th birthday. So I'm not even sure it was legal to work in New Zealand then. But that's not uncommon, you know, and certainly in the 1990s or in New Zealand, it's really important that you learn how to work.

[B]

So you were obviously a worker. You worked in like a fish shop, didn't you? Fish and chips. All right.

[A]

I don't know if you could be any more quintessential New Zealand. I worked at a fish and chip shop. That's right.

[B]

So when did the interest in politics come in and where did it come from? How did you initially start to. Because you leaned in early to politics.

[A]

I think it wasn't the case that I saw politics and thought, that looks a bit of me. In fact, for me, I think there are two. You know, it's a crude observation, but I think there are two groups of politicians in the world generally. There's the group that, you know, they genuinely want to change the world. They think that things could be better and that whether that's they're motivated locally or they're thinking about foreign policy, they just want to improve the place where they're living and that their kids are growing up in. And then there's another group who love the sport of politics. They love the cut and thrust, they love the wheeling and dealing. And those two groups often, you know, one exists in politics in spite of how it fields and the other are there because of it. And so I. I definitely was in the first category before I lived in Morinsville. I lived in a really little town of about 3,000 people. The second one was 5,000. So much, much bigger, obviously 3,000 people. It was a forestry town. And during the 1980s, which was a really rough period in New Zealand, significant economic reform, a period called broadgenomics, which was when there was really rapid deregulation and we had a very, very regulated economy. And then we very rapidly opened up. And that was quite a brutal transition for New Zealand. And so I remember nothing, of course, of the politics, but in that town there was a lot of unemployment, the forestry industry, which was the main employer, suddenly people were losing their jobs and my father was the local policeman. You know, it's a knock on effect from poverty and inequality and it manifests in lots of ways and crime and gang membership was one of them. So here I am, five, six, seven years old, living in this town and I just see kids who don't have lunch at school, or I see that they live in houses where they can't afford to replace broken windows or suddenly my babysitter gets hepatitis and come and look after us anymore. You know, those things. For me, I didn't walk around thinking rogernomics, but I did walk around thinking that that didn't feel fair. And I think that from there I took that with me in some way and I think it's eventually led me into politics. Yeah.

[B]

So you joined the Labour Party. I think you were 17?

[A]

Yeah. Except I always remember just seeing labor politicians on the television and thinking, well, that's my team. I just always remember thinking that. So I don't remember. I mean, there was no Google. But it wasn't the case that I, you know, went out and sought information to find out who I politically supported. I just remember knowing that that was the team that most aligned with the way I saw the world. Maybe I picked it up from my nana, maybe. But I don't recall that. It was just there.

[B]

So you became an MP. How old were you when you first became an MP?

[A]

I was 28 years old.

[B]

28. Wow. And I remember reading that your dad was saying, look, politics for you, Jacinda isn't going to be the right thing because you're a sensitive person. You know, he basically was trying to protect you from the rough and tumble, scary swimming with the sharks kind of thing.

[A]

Yeah, he thought policing was way safer, in fact, you know, So I ended up in my 20s through a series of events. I ended up working in Parliament and I was working for a minister and I had a great job and I really enjoyed it, but I just didn't see myself doing that for life because it was hard. Even though I was a cog in a machine, you make a mistake, it could end up on the front page. You could, you know, ruin your boss's career if you got something wrong? I remember the weight of that and thinking, I don't know if I'm tough enough to, to stay even working behind the scenes in Parliament. So I started thinking about joining the New Zealand Police. I got the forms in order to go onto the New Zealand Police College. I started training for the physical test. I don't want to over egg that. I started just running the old lap. I remember when I realised that you had to do a beep test, being a bit worried, but I was really committed and I had these really long conversations with dad and I remember him encouraging me. And then in the midst of that one day he's down at an event where the New Zealand Minister of Police was and she knew me and she found, came across my dad and she said, your daughter would make a good mp. And he said, oh, no, no, no, she is far too thin skinned. And he wasn't wrong. He's still not wrong. But again, that's because we all carry this perception of what a politician is meant to be. If I'd asked him to, he would have given the same list as those kids did.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So I don't blame him for that. But he. He thought I was going to be on a different path. And so did I.

[B]

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[B]

So stepping into that role, it was scary there. There's a lot of cruelty and meanness and sharp elbows and stuff. How did you protect yourself? Or how did you even. How did you decide you were going to be in that role?

[A]

Well, I didn't decide. That's probably almost the story of my path into politics is it's been lots of moments where I almost tricked myself into the pathway and only the New Zealand system Or maybe the German system could probably allow you to do that. So we have a system where you get two votes. Sorry, you didn't realise you were coming in for a New Zealand Politics 101, but I'll make it really quick. You get two votes in New Zealand. You get to vote in your local constituency for the person that you want to represent you where you live. And usually you represent about 60,000 people. And so, as you can imagine, most of those candidates belong to the two big parties in New Zealand, and you have to get a majority to win, but every voter gets a second vote. And your second vote is for the party that you want to run the government. And the really interesting thing about that is it means that you actually might be a big environmentalist and you might want to vote for that really little party called the Green Party. But their candidates never win seats, they never get majorities, but you can still vote for that party as well. Or you might just say, well, I want the labor candidate and I want the Labor Party. And the way that then the parliament's made up, you bring in all the people who won seats, and then if the Labor Party, for instance, ends up getting more votes than they did seats, they bring them in off something called the party list. And that list is how New Zealand in 2023 got to 50% women in the New Zealand Parliament, because. Wow.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Because it is allowed, you know, where people haven't necessarily won majorities. If you're from a refugee community, it's really hard to get selected for a seat and win a majority for a seat. But when your party brings you in to say, hey, Parliament should look like New Zealand, let's make sure that we've got some diversity on our list. So that's the background. I was living in London on my overseas experience, having left the New Zealand Parliament as a researcher. I packed up, realised I wasn't gonna make the fitness test for the New Zealand police, went overseas to have a little bit of a different experience. And while I was over there, an election came up and I thought, how am I gonna help my party? What am I gonna do? And I thought, well, I could run a campaign in London to get New Zealanders to vote back home, because you can do that, you can vote from overseas. And I was running that campaign when someone from home said, why don't you put yourself on the list? They're like, you don't have to win, you don't have to go into Parliament. But just by being on the list, it'll lift the profile of your campaign. Ok. I was like, that's a good idea. So I did. But once I was on there, I thought, well, I should probably do it properly. And so I went through all the usual steps of, you know, going out and doing all the meetings. I came back to New Zealand for a bit, went back to London, and then the final meeting was where they rank where you're going to be on that list, which they do before election day and then they publish it. I got a phone call. You're number 20. I was going into Parliament. I was living in Brixton when that happened. And I thought, sheesh. So that. So to, you know, to, I guess, finish the story. I didn't really say yes, I just stopped saying no. And then suddenly I found myself on a trajectory that I subconsciously probably knew I was putting myself on, but never really admitted.

[B]

What was Parliament like? Was it what your father had described? Was it as difficult? Were people, Were there sharp elbows? And how did you protect yourself?

[A]

Has anyone ever watched the British Parliament?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

So it's very aggressive. You know, there's a lot of yelling and heckling. I mean, the rules in the New Zealand Parliament, very similar. And it's a fascinating way of operating when you're down in the debating chamber. I mean, you can just yell, but so long as you don't call anyone a hypocrite. So you can yell almost anything you like, but you can't say anyone's a liar or a hypocrite, because that's unparliamentary. But you can yell anything else you like. And I knew I'd watched the Parliament. I had prepared ministers for the Parliament. I'd been working in that place for three years. So when I came back to it as an mp, I thought, this is the place I'm going to struggle.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And that wasn't wrong. I hated the debating chamber and I hated it till the day I left Parliament. Fifteen years I endured that place.

[B]

Yeah. So how did you take it when you were in that exchange with somebody? Like, I feel like I would go home at night and feel just horrible about it.

[A]

Yeah. And sometimes I. Sometimes I did. I mean, it's almost a daily test when you're in the hot seat, being asked questions. There's two different versions. When you're in opposition, you're asking the questions. When you're Prime Minister, you're answering them and you'll get the first question you'll know about two hours before. They'll put it in writing before you go down. But that's all you know. And the only thing they'll tell you usually is does the Prime Minister stand by all her statements. So no sign of what you're going to get and then you just go down there and you'll be questioned. And it could last for 20 minutes. And in amongst that there's a barrage, a wall of people just screaming at you. Well, not screaming, yelling. So much better. And sometimes up in the rafters there's classrooms of children and I used to look up and think, what must they think? And so there were small things that we could do. And so I really tried to set a tone with my team. When we're down there, we're not personal. When we're down there we play, as we'd say in New Zealand, we play the ball, not the man. It's a rugby thing. It means stick to the issue. And if anyone's having a personal scandal or a crisis, we are not commenting on that. I couldn't change the rules of the debating chamber but I could change the way we engaged with some of those issues.

[B]

Did gender play? Was that one of the things that played in that.

[A]

Sometimes I thought the lines of questioning were a little bit different than you might get, particularly on issues like the economy. I think there is an expectation that as a woman you have to prove your chops in some of those areas more than you otherwise might. But I was very lucky. I was not the first female leader, I was the third.

[B]

That's amazing.

[A]

I was the third. That's amazing.

[B]

I mean, is New Zealand just progressive to have three female leaders already?

[A]

I've been asked this question before and I think there's some things that when you come from a place it's really hard to explain but, but a couple of things that might help. You already know the New Zealand political system, that has helped. You'll never use that again, except for an obscure pub quiz. But that has helped a lot, A lot. When I came into the New Zealand Parliament I was the 99th woman. We're now over the 177th. In a short space of time we've had much more diversity and all of that lends itself to people becoming more climatised to having diverse representation and more proof points that diverse representation can work for New Zealand. Recently I was told Teen Vogue covered one of our 22 year old members of Parliament who went viral because she performed a haka on the floor of Parliament. And you know what that does, that tells young people, that tells young people in New Zealand that there are representatives that are close to their demographic and their. Perhaps their worldview. And that means they're more likely to be engaged in their parliament and their democracy. And so that's a very roundabout way. Are we more progressive? I think we have an expectation. We actually just have an expectation that our politics represents us, you know, and that actually. And that means there should be women who are leaders in our parliament, because you cannot tell me that out of 120 MPs in New Zealand, you can't find 60 good women and one of them couldn't be in charge. So it's very simple. Amen. One more thing.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

New Zealand was also the first country in the world to give women the right to vote.

[B]

Wow. Wow.

[A]

So you were elected, your second pub quiz fact for today.

[B]

You were the youngest world leader elected for New Zealand. You were 37 when you were elected Prime Minister. There's a moment when you learn that you had won that. And there's a shot of you, and I just looked at you and I was wondering, like, what are you thinking in this moment? Like this. I don't know if this is something you had dreamt about or thought about or wanted or if it was something that, like most things, I feel like you like the work and all of these titles seem to just come to you.

[A]

So you mean on election night?

[B]

Yeah, on election night.

[A]

But election night, I thought we'd lost. I was absolutely convinced. I mean, I gave a speech that afterwards someone said to me that sounded like a concession. I was like, it kind of was. Because of our system, we often end up with coalition governments. So on election night, we weren't the party with the biggest vote, but the other party actually couldn't do it without the help of someone else as well. So we were all in this waiting game, waiting till the final tally of votes and waiting to see what one of the minor parties would do. Would they work with us? Would they work with the other lot? So, yeah, I went up on that stage and I gave almost a concession speech. I very, very much came close to saying, we haven't done it, but I was counselled not to do that. And talk about a butterfly moment. You know, had I ruled ourselves out, I would never have been Prime Minister. And one little speech could have done that. Wow.

[B]

Tell me about the realization that you were, in fact, Prime Minister of New Zealand.

[A]

This is a curious thing, because the moment I found out I was prime minister was when the leader of that small party went on national television at 6pm and told new Zealand. And that was when I found out everyone thinks he called me first, but he didn't. I was in my office with the news on because I knew it was going to be that night. Some of my advisors and MPs were gathered in there with me. And as you can imagine, I mean, that afternoon I was pacing, you know, up and down, waiting to see if the phone might ring. Will he tell me the fact he didn't call? I thought, oh, yeah, it's like the Bachelor. I thought, oh, I'm not getting a rose, you know. And so I felt, you know, I thought, this isn't feeling good because I might have heard by now. And so I watched as the cameras followed him down the hallway. And there was this chair in another room and just down the hall from me where our staff were. And quickly journalists start reporting chair from the Labour Office. And they thought that it meant that we had been chosen. But the staff were just watching the Chase quiz show. So it was a bit of a false alarm. I think we managed to dispel that. He tracks down and he comes down into the Beehive Theaterette. And then he decides the whole nation is watching. So he gives the longest speech and I'm hanging off every word for any kind of clue. And he says something along the lines of, capitalism has lost its human face. And when he said that, I thought, it's gotta be us. I think he's chosen us. And then, you know, a couple of moments later, and I'm just standing in front of the television watching. Couple of moments later. And that is why we have chosen the New Zealand Labor Party.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

And that was it. I learned on the television that I would be Prime Minister. Wow.

[B]

How did that land?

[A]

It's the amazing thing to me is that I. So my husband was in my then partner, but my now husband was in the room and he filmed that moment. I'm so glad he did because every time I watch it, it's now in a documentary. Every time I watch it, I can remember exactly how I felt. It was like this release of pressure that I felt. We'd been in opposition for nine years and through that time I'd watched child poverty increase and homelessness increase and we weren't doing what we needed to on climate change. And I felt so much pressure to win, to do something about all of those things. And when he announced that, I just. My hands went into the air because I thought, we've done it, you know, now we can. We can do something. And then another weight of responsibility fell back down. But it was a Brief, joyous moment. And the thing I love the most is watching my friend and colleague, Grant Roberson, because he just. He cries and shakes with sheer joy and sadness all rolled into one.

[B]

It's just an extraordinary thing to watch in that moment. Well, I guess it was six days before you were confirmed as Prime Minister. And this is something that you talk about in the beginning of the book. You found out that you were pregnant.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So there was that.

[A]

What's that?

[B]

How were you. How were you processing all that was happening in that moment?

[A]

Yeah, I. I don't know. I mean, if many of you will be familiar with the term compartmentalization. I don't confess to being good at many things, but I'm really good at that. And so you've heard the story of how, you know, I've come to learn that I'm Prime Minister. If we just rewind just a couple of days, we're in the middle of those negotiations. We're going through every possible policy thing you can imagine with this minor party. They're doing the same thing with the Conservatives. I know this because every time we come into the negotiating room, there'll be the remnants of their last conversation. It. Honestly, it felt like you were dating someone and you weren't sure if they were gonna be monogamous with you or not. One day I walked in and there was still lipstick on the glass that was at the table. And immediately I was like, ah, Paula Bennett's been here. I can tell by the shade of lipstick and so that it was a really. She was a National Party minister. So it was a really. A really intense time. And through that, I wasn't feeling normal. I just didn't feel that well. And I thought stress, anxiety, all sorts of things. But a friend of mine who works in health just asked me a few probing questions and said, you know, one night I should come out and have dinner with her. Just take a break, have a bath. Because I was staying in an apartment by myself in the city otherwise. And so I said, okay, and popped out to see her. And she just slides this pregnancy test across the table. Very forward. But that's my friend. And so I. I didn't think that that was. That seemed highly unlikely. I mean, most stressful moment of my life. And I had struggled to conceive.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

I'd been told that I would not have a child without intervention. So the idea that in the midst of this. And there it was.

[B]

There it was.

[A]

I was pregnant.

[B]

You were pregnant? Yeah.

[A]

And this is about three days before becoming Prime Minister.

[B]

And during that, how was. Did you have morning sickness? How were you feeling?

[A]

No, at that time, I wasn't nauseous. It wasn't. I just wasn't quite myself. But at that stage, I was functioning better than I did a couple of weeks later. Yeah.

[B]

So how did you reveal that news? Was there a big strategy behind it? Or did you just do it the way you do, which is just kind of say, what's going on?

[A]

Well, no, I hit it. I thought, well, I can't exactly, in the middle of the negotiations where I'm trying to get people to pick me to be Prime Minister, say, hey.

[B]

By.

[A]

The way, pick me. But I'm just gonna pop off for a little maternity leave. You know, I really wanted New Zealanders to know and believe, because this was true, that I prioritised them. And I, of course, did not believe it was the case that having a child meant that I didn't. But the perception might be there. People might not believe that to be true.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But the reality was I was actually concerned that I wouldn't stay pregnant. You know, my mother had had a miscarriage. I knew that that was. You know, at my age, I was technically geriatric. I was 37 years old. And so I didn't want to tell people because I thought it might not last. And so I. So I didn't. I held onto it. There was my friend and Clark, and for a long time, that was it.

[B]

That was it.

[A]

That was it.

[B]

When you felt comfortable, how did you let New Zealand know?

[A]

Well, I waited 20 weeks.

[B]

You waited 20?

[A]

Yeah, which was quite hard because I was not well. Yeah. But no one picked up on it. No one picked up on it. And I thought lots of times that my cover would be blown, but the way that I told New Zealand was we called a press conference to my house out in the front steps. And just immediately before I did that press conference, I just. I did what everyone does. I announced it on Instagram, just put out a little post. Clark and I, we didn't want to do anything cheesy, like, you know, the. Oh, gosh, I was definitely not putting out a pee stick. So I did the no judgment if people do want to do that. But I just didn't think that was prime ministerial. So we had the little fishing hooks. We did two. My husband's a fisherman. We did two big fishing hooks, one little fishing hook, and we took a photo and that was that.

[B]

And by the way, New Zealand just rallied. I mean, they rallied. Did you wonder what the reaction was going to be.

[A]

It's this really interesting thing. I generally think that my instinct on where New Zealanders go on things is pretty, pretty good. But I lost all perspective on this. I just did not know how people would react. I thought, well, you know, there might be some who might view this quite conservatively. I'm unwed and I'm pregnant. There might be others who just see it as a distraction from my job. I had a thousand different really negative takes on what I was about to tell New Zealand. But I was so overwhelmed by how happy people were for us. And it was a real lesson to me and I hope more generally. We often make a lot of assumptions about how accepting people will be of certain things, of certain types of leadership, of certain diversity in leadership, of, you know, different makeups of family. We make assumptions, but at least in my experience was that overwhelmingly it was welcomed.

[B]

We'll hear more from Jacinta Ardern in just a moment. The sales are sizzling at Whole Foods Market just in time for the fourth of July weekend. Fire up the grill with savings on robust no antibiotics ever steaks. And there's more. Look for sales on meaty pork chops made in house salmon burgers and sustainable wild caught sockeye salmon filets. Get it all with same day delivery or free pickup. Restrictions apply. Shop everything you need for 4th of July and beyond at Whole Foods Market, in store and online. Hi, Zoe Saldana. Welcome to T Mobile. Here's your new iPhone 16 Pro on us.

[A]

Thanks.

[B]

And here's my old phone to trade in. You don't need a trade in when you switch to T mobile. We'll give you a new iPhone 16 Pro. Plus we'll help you pay off your old Phone up to 800 bucks and you still get to keep it.

[A]

There's always a trade in. Not right now.

[B]

@ T Mobile. I feel like I have to give.

[A]

You something in return for karma.

[B]

That's okay. I don't really have much in my purse.

[A]

Oh, let's see. Hand sanitizer. It's lavender.

[B]

I'm good. Seriously.

[A]

Let me check this pocket. Oh, mints.

[B]

Really, I'm fine. Oh, I have raisins.

[A]

I'm a mom. Wait, wait, wait one sec. I've got cupcakes in the car.

[B]

It's our best iPhone offer ever. Switch to T Mobile. Get a new iPhone 16 Pro with Apple intelligence on us. No trade in needed. We'll even pay off your phone up to 800 bucks with 24 monthly bill credits. New line, 100 plus a month on experience beyond Finance Agreement 999.99 and qualify imported for well qualified plus tax and 10 connection charge payout via virtual prepaid card allow 15 days credits and imbalance due if you pay off earlier. Campaign CT mobile.com pro paint days are back at Lowe's and my Lowe's Pro Rewards members can save even more with limited time deals right now. Buy one get one half off select HGTV Home by Sherwin Williams Primer and ceiling paint plus get free same day delivery to your job site when you order by 2pm Offer valid through 613 Delivery by 8pm subject to driver availability. Additional terms apply. C loads.com SameDay Delivery for details. Your leadership style, you talk a lot about, which I love. It talks about how you lead with empathy and kindness and compassion, and you also obviously lead with strength and courage and resilience and all those things can work together. As prime minister, was there a way that you spoke to the members of your party and said, hey guys and women, this is what we're going to do. We're gonna have a narrative here. This is how we're gonna govern?

[A]

I didn't always think that you could. I mean, coming back to that first example, being in the classroom, I thought, well, there's a way in the world that people perceive politicians and that's fine, and that might be the politicians that continue to lead us, but I'm just gonna quietly do things in a way that allows me to slee. But there are a number of things that happened along the way that reinforced for me that that was the way I was in politics, meant I wasn't really necessarily going to end up, you know, at the top. And that was okay. There was a journalist who would grade all the politicians and one day he, at the end of the year gave me a very low ranking. And essentially it was because I was not an effective opposition mp because I'd claimed no scalps, I hadn't ended anyone's career. So I did not think that kindness and empathy was necessarily a winning strategy. But it was still going to be mine. Through a series of unexpected events, much like my life generally, I ended up as leader of the Labor Party and seven weeks out from the election, and because it was so swift, I didn't change my way of doing politics. And so I remember saying to the team, we've been in opposition for nine years. If we are going to win this election. We were polling in the 20s, so it seemed unlikely. If we're going to win this election, we have to change the way we talk. We are going to be relentlessly positive. We are going to talk about what's possible, not about just everything that is wrong. We're going to talk about how we are going to improve people's lives. And that's not why the government was so terrible. I mean, we'd have a contest of ideas, but that was the starting point. And the second was that whole issue I had with the way that the house worked. I tried to bring that in. We are not going to attack people's families, their personal lives, anything that makes anyone think that we are more focused on ourselves and the politics than them and the team. After we came into government, the team stuck with that for five years. That was our set of values that we operated by. Yeah.

[B]

Wow. I think her leadership style was on display in a series of tragedies that happened in your country during your reign, which are, you know, really difficult ones. That mass shooting at the mosque at Christchurch and how you handled that with. With empathy, kindness and action. I think that's important.

[A]

It's really important because there's two things I really want to address about this notion of empathy and kindness in leadership. There's an assumption that it is performative, you know, that it is, sure, authenticity, but, you know, where does it take you? I totally dispute that. You cannot have an empathetic response that then does not seek to resolve the issue that has caused that distress or that crisis or that issue. And so the, you know, clearest example I can give is March15, a horrific domestic terror attack in New Zealand. The lost lives of 51 members of our Muslim community. They didn't need us to just come and grieve with them. They need us to do something about the AR15s that took the lives of so many people in such a short space of time. So we banned them, and we banned them in 27 days. And, you know, I really rebel about. Against this idea that kindness doesn't also mean strength and courage. Because the moment that, you know, I heard that those AR15s were legally obtained, my first thought was that cannot. That cannot stand. We cannot have a situation where we as legislators are complicit because we have a law that has enabled the access to those weapons. And so without knowing if we had the votes, I just simply went down and said, we are going to change those laws. Because I believed that if our legislators were connected to the New Zealand public and the expectation of change, that they would be with me. There are 120 members of parliament in New Zealand, and 119 of them voted in Favour of that ban. Wow. Wow.

[B]

The pandemic was another real test of your leadership in New Zealand. That was among the lowest death rates in the world. That happened in New Zealand. How was leading through that crisis and how did you keep that through line of kindness and strength?

[A]

And look, you know, the one thing I will say is that, you know, Covid was incredibly hard and there was almost two phases to our response. And I try and talk about this a little bit more in the book, but just to the beginning phase. The first thing that I sensed was just the fear. The fear and the anxiety of the uncertainty that was present. I learned over time that in crisis, in leadership, you have this assumption again in leadership, that you have to display confidence at all times in order to build the confidence of others in you. Well, that's true, you do have to be confident as a leader. But we misinterpret that. That means that you have to pretend or at least demonstrate that you know everything at all times. And the honest truth is you simply can't. Because in Covid, it was clear. Everyone looked out in the world and could see we didn't know everything about that illness. That's why everyone had a different strategy. It's why things were going horribly wrong in some places. People knew. And so in my mind, the best thing we could do was go up and share everything we knew, everything we didn't know. And the plan that we had in a situation where it was unpredictable, here is what we will do. And I think because people could see we were sharing all of that and that we still had a plan actually, that built confidence, people trusted us. And in that period of time, we had an increase in trust in institutions and government. Now it ebbed, it ebbed globally in the latter half. And I think it's really important that we go and spend some time looking at what happened in those phases because I think it will be indicative of a general environment that we're struggling with, with disinformation, misinformation issues around conspiracy and so on. We do need to tackle that and come to terms with it. But we also, from time to time, need to say a little more often, I don't know, but I do have a plan.

[B]

I don't know, but I do have a plan. Why did you step down, by the way?

[A]

Why did you leave so much of a spoiler alert? I mean, I'm here, so yes, I did. Everyone, I'm sorry to ruin the ending of the book. I resigned at the end. I think it's human nature that Everyone thought that there was this thing that I wasn't telling, that I went out and. And said, as I did, I went out and said, I've been in this job five years, you know, I've been in politics, though, for 15. There's been some really difficult moments. And sometimes you have to recognise when you've been through crisis, you have to recognise what you need to lead in crisis. And I don't have enough in the tank anymore. I could have kept going. It wasn't burnout. I could have kept going, but I couldn't have kept going and been the leader that I expected myself to be and that I had a responsibility to be. And that was my reason. I know people kept looking for alternative answers. I know that some expected me to stand up and say, well, no, it's to spend more time with my family. But there was no way I was standing up and sharing a message with women that they could not be a mother and a leader. There was no way. I'm sorry, that was it. I mean, I've spent a bit more time in the book talking about all of the things that led up to that decision, just to try and give a bit more context. But, yeah, that was it. It was time for someone else. And sometimes we need to recognize when it is time for someone else.

[B]

Yeah. You've been in the States for a couple of years. Are you optimistic about the future?

[A]

I mean, it's very loaded when you preface it with you're in the United States. I'm generally. I'm generally an optimist. Yeah. Actually, most people I meet in politics generally are. Yeah, that's. I would say that. I think, because when you're in politics, it's because you have a belief that things can be better. But I push back against this idea that optimism is naive. You know, when you say, are you optimistic? It's almost like, how could you be? Well, I am, because optimism is an expectation. It's an active belief and hope and aspiration that things could be better. And when you're optimistic, you're placing an expectation that people who are decision makers do better. I'm optimistic because they've been elected to do better and I expect that they will. And the moment you stop believing that is when indifference comes in. And the moment we are indifferent, that's when hope's lost. That's when I lose hope. So, no, I am optimistic because I see the expectation that's still out there. I see it in our young people. I still have it. I still have it myself.

[B]

Hey, guys, thank you so much for listening and for coming on this journey with me. If you like what you heard, and I hope that you do, please give Making Space a five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts and make sure you tell your friends. Follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you're listening right now. Making Space with Hoda Kotb is produced by Alison Berger along with Kate Saunders. Our Associate Audio Engineer is Juliana Masterilli. Our audio engineers are Katie Lau and Mark Yoshi Zumi originally original music by John Estes. Bryson Barnes is our Head of Audio Production. Missy Dunlop Parsons is our Executive Producer. Libby Leist is the Executive Vice President of Today and Lifestyle at Capella University. You can learn at your own pace with our Flexpath learning format. Take one or two courses at a time and complete as many as you can in a 12 week billing session. With Flexpath you can finish the Bachelor's degree you started in 19 months and under $19,000. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more at capella.edu fast as 25% of students. Cost varies by pace, transfer credits and other factors. Fees apply.