How Jacinda Ardern Turned Self-Doubt into a Strength

A few weeks ago, Maya joined former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern for a deeply reflective, intimate conversation in front of a live audience in San Francisco. The event was hosted by City Arts & Lectures, which hosts longform conversations with everyone from Bruce Springsteen, to Yuval Noah Harari —— onstage, and on their podcast. 

For more on City Arts & Lectures in person programming, visit www.cityarts.net.

For more episodes of the City Arts & Lectures podcast, visit www.cityarts.net/audio.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:14):
Pushkin Hey Slight Changers Maya here. A few weeks ago,
I was invited to sit down for a conversation with

(00:35):
former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Arderne. This event was
recorded live in San Francisco and was hosted by City
Arts and Lectures, which hosts long form conversations with everyone
from Bruce Springsteen to Yuval Noah Harari live on stage
and on their podcast. I wanted to share this conversation

(00:55):
with you all because the content feels so fitting for
a slight change of plans. As you'll hear, Jacinda was
an unlikely politician and took some unusual turns on her
way to becoming the most powerful person in New yaeland
I also think there's a lot we can learn from
her story, like her approach to conflict and her empathetic
leadership style. I'm so excited to share this special episode

(01:19):
with all of you. I really hope you enjoy it.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Welcome to City Arts and Lectures, a season of talks
and on stage conversations with some of the most celebrated writers, artists,
and thinkers of our day, recorded before an audience at
the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco. Our guest today

(02:03):
is the right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern. When she became
Prime Minister of New Zealand at the age of thirty seven,
Ardren was the youngest female head of government in the world.
Her tenure coincided with a particularly challenging period, including a
major mass shooting, the COVID nineteen pandemic, and a volcanic eruption.

(02:24):
Among her notable accomplishments abortion law reform, groundbreaking legislation on
climate change, and a leadership style marked by empathy. On
June ninth, twenty twenty five, on the occasion of her
just published memoir, Arderne came to the Sidney Goldstein Theater
in San Francisco, where she talked to doctor Maya Shunkar
about her Mormon childhood, her unexpected nomination to office, and

(02:48):
her personal vision for compassionate government leaders. Join us now
for a conversation with Dame Jacinda Arderne.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
That's what a crowd, What a nice crowd. We are
so excited to have you here. Decinda in San Francisco.
She told me I could call Hersinda. We're sort of
on a first name basis. You've written this beautiful book,

(03:24):
and you talk about, of course the politics of it all,
but you really share a very vulnerable personal story, and
tonight I want to dig in to some of those
to share with this crowd. So I'd love to start
by traveling both back in time and across the globe
to New Zealand to revisit young Desinda.

Speaker 3 (03:49):
This is the moment where I roll out a couch
and I logged down from my therapy station in front
of an intimate audience.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
Exactly. I'm curious to hear what kind of values your
parents instilled in you.

Speaker 3 (04:04):
Well, first of all, I can't see any of you
at all joined with fright lights, but I just wanted
to to say cured to Koto Namah nuk Koto, Hello
to everyone, Thank you for joining us this evening. You
know you're right, it is an intimate book. And I'm

(04:26):
not sure if I knew I was doing that at
the time, but oh well, I was asked a lot
during my time in office, and particularly you know when
I first entered as an MP. You know, why have
you chosen politics? And when people ask you that question

(04:46):
when you're in politics, it's not the way they ask
you a question if you, for instance, go into psychology,
or if you go into engineering, there's this question mark
at the end that's very pointed, why, as if you're
not of sane mind. And I understand that politics is

(05:07):
a really a really tough place to be, and so
when people would ask me, they would often want to
dig into what is it about you that has made
you want to go and be in this particular place.
And as I was writing, there were certain things about
my younger years that I thought, Oh, I'd never really
thought of that particular thing before. But it is true

(05:31):
that kindness has always been a really important value for me.
Service has always been a really important value for me,
and there's no question that my parents instilled both of
those in me. But the idea of the strength of kindness,
the fact that these two duel character traits can coexist

(05:51):
in a person, despite what people say about the trade
of kindness, I actually saw in my father as I
was writing. My father was a policeman for forty years
and we lived in a really small town called Mudupada
in New Zealand during a period of great economic disruption.
So there was a lot of poverty in the town

(06:12):
that we lived in, and I think when the new
policeman rolls into town. I can tell you that does
not make you popular at school if that person is
your dad. And I remember really believing though, even as
like a five and six year old, that as soon
as they got to know my dad, things would get better.
So he worked on winning over the community. He even

(06:33):
put himself up for the school fear. They used to
do a little fundraiser down at the primary school where
they would have a dunking machine. I'm not sure if
that's a thing here, but in his full uniform in
the middle of winter, he sat on the end of
this dunking machine. Everyone got so much joy.

Speaker 1 (06:50):
Plunging him into an ice pool.

Speaker 3 (06:52):
That was one of the realizations I had kindness and strength.
He embodied both so clearly for me.

Speaker 1 (06:59):
Yeah, you write in the book that he valued listening
so much, and so you know he wanted to know
not just what crimes people had committed, but why they
had committed those crimes. Right, you had to understand the psychology.
Tell me more about what that kind of example meant
to you.

Speaker 3 (07:18):
And I remember, you know, some examples of where he
would try and redirect me a little bit, where I
had this very black and white, you know, view of
my dad, the policeman. And I know I was proud
of the job that he had because they used to
make in New Zealand these little t shirts for kids
that had a little police badge on the corner of them,
and I know I used to wear mine to school

(07:40):
a little too often because I was really proud of
what he did. But I share a story in the
book about a time when I remember we lived in
the police house, and so in order to get to
town by a twenty cent lollimix. You that's the kind
of specificity you can expect in the book, I had
to I had to cut through because you remember the

(08:02):
little things when you're a kid, the first name and
the last name of all your school friends. And now
I can't even remember mindphone number now, but I remember that.
So I would cut through the police station car park
to get down to town. And one day I was
I was doing that on on my own when I
saw my dad surrounded by a group of gang members,

(08:25):
you know, and I was little, but I knew enough
to know that that he was not in a good situation.
I just remember his hand being out as this group
circled around him, and I didn't want to be seen,
but I also couldn't tear my eyes away from the
situation because I was worried about him. But as soon
as he caught my eye, just told me to move on.

(08:46):
But it was later that night when I asked him
about it. You know, I wanted to hear some big
story about, you know, Dad, did you kung fu chop someone?
You know, did you do something? My dad was not
a tall man either, and so I was amazed that
he was okay whatever had happened. He was really disappointed,
I could tell by the line of quistioning I had,
and he just said to me to sit here, the

(09:07):
woods will be the greatest tool I ever have, And
what a lesson for someone. But that was kind of
the way that he was. And it was a few
years later when I was a little older, a little
more able to understand his job. He was a detective
by this point, so he was particularly spent a lot

(09:28):
of time on homicide cases. And I remember our trip
away for summer holidays was ended abruptly when there was
a homicide in our local city and we came back
and after a few weeks, I remember him making an arrest,
because I saw his picture on the front page of
the paper, and I remember his face and he was

(09:48):
taking in the suspect into court, and he just looked
so sad, And I remember saying to it, but Dad,
you solved the.

Speaker 1 (09:58):
Crime, you know, why did not the bad guy got
the bad Why did you?

Speaker 3 (10:03):
Why did you look like that? And then he sat
down and he told me the story that had led
up to those circumstances, and how awful it was for everyone,
for everyone, including the family of the person that he
was arresting. The world was never black and white for
my dad. And what a gift is a child to
be to be taught that early on.

Speaker 4 (10:23):
Oh.

Speaker 3 (10:23):
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (10:24):
Another character trait that you expressed somewhat unusually, I would
say for a young child is the joy of feeling useful. Yes,
I'm an aunt to six nieces nephews. I wouldn't say
necessarily that's their most defining trade is desired to be
a super useful kid. They're just having fun and playing
around and you you talk in your book, it was

(10:46):
such a charming story. I think of being like on
a paper route and there's this like really like nasty
dog at one of the houses and you're like, nope,
gotta gotta throw a newspaper over there.

Speaker 3 (10:56):
So yeah, I mean, I don't know whether or not
there was an example of usefulness or the extreme weight
of guilt that I felt as a child that if
I I mean because I was raised woman and so
so many great characteristics about being raised in a church
that is so centered on service. But one of the

(11:18):
byproducts of that was I had this idea in my
head that even when I was doing my pamphlet run
up Lincoln Street, that if I missed a house, God
was watching. And I don't know what interest God had
in a supermarket fly being delivered to that particular house,
but it was there.

Speaker 1 (11:34):
It was too small, no.

Speaker 3 (11:36):
And so I think I, yes, I was driven by
the idea of being useful, but also the idea that
I was at all times responsible for just always doing
the right thing, and so that really it flowed down
to the most minute minute thing for a while for me.

Speaker 1 (11:56):
Yeaheah, you've written that you never imagine even for a
second that you had one day become prime minister, and
you know the political world is hostile.

Speaker 3 (12:08):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (12:09):
You've gotten a memo from the United States recently, we're
kind of having a tough time, Okay, Now is when
you pull out my couch for for me to share
my personal experience everyone. We In large part this is

(12:31):
because you said, you know, you were a very sensitive kid,
You were empathetic, and so I'm so curious to know,
as someone who cares a lot about society but finds
the political sphere so unsavory. What when did you have

(12:51):
that first inkling that it was still going to be
worth it for you, that you might still want to
enter that sphere?

Speaker 3 (13:00):
Is such a good question. Worth it? You know? I
think the worth it piece for me, I would just
all a sense of responsibility because I think I've always
I've always seen and still see politics as a place

(13:20):
where you can genuinely make a difference. And this is
the stretch probably for everyone to hear this right now
as well. I've never stopped believing that politics is and
should be a noble act of service. I do now,
and it is. It is We're in a particular period

(13:42):
in time where that is not what is currently being
embodied by those who have making a difference. I'm putting
a racist on a noble active service.

Speaker 1 (13:53):
Yeah, Okay, I got it.

Speaker 3 (13:55):
And so the worth thing for me that in the
round has always been there. But in order to be there,
there's a lot that you have to experience. And I've
always thought that there's two types of politicians in the world.
There are those who actually are there because they think
you can change things, you can fix problems, and that
the rest actually you're you're there in spite of those things.

(14:17):
And then there are the people who just love the
cut and thrust. They like the power or the potential
of power, they like the maneuvering, they like the dark arts.
The majority is that not what you say here.

Speaker 1 (14:38):
It's mostly used in a Harry Potter contact sometimes.

Speaker 3 (14:43):
Well this is some kind of dystopian something so sentimentale.
The majority of the majority of politicians that I have
met have actually been in the first category. They have,
and I would wager there a number in this country

(15:03):
too who fall in that category. But there's not a
lot of incentive for those to be the ones that
succeed in spotlighted in the current environment, and there's lots
of reasons we can talk about for that. So the
moment that I decided it was worth it, I think
I always believed it was worth it, but it just
didn't make it feel easy. This is what I would say.

Speaker 1 (15:21):
Yeah, you've talked about the fact that in your early
years in parliament, that's when it was really reinforced, reinforced
for you that you weren't willing to change who you were, Right,
you weren't willing to present differently or I thought about it. Yeah,
So then so what was it that we feel I'm
sure you did. Yeah, there are so many pressure. I mean,

(15:42):
we've seen women in particular go through the political system
and come out totally manufactured. Right, still died bizarre in
years and I haven't. I don't think it's their fault.
I think that the external forces shape them in really
unfortunate ways. So obviously there was some luxury that you had, right,

(16:05):
which is that you didn't have to change who you
were potentially in your environment. But then you also made
an active choice not to even if it was mebe
expedient for you too, That's true, and that was probably
helped by the fact that even so I was Some
people think I had the relatively short career of being
a Prime minister for.

Speaker 3 (16:23):
Six years, but I'd actually been in parliament in total
for fifteen. I came in when I was twelve, and
that nine years in opposition, WHI was being really tough
because no one goes into politics to sit on the
sidelines and just chip away and just lob across to

(16:46):
the other side and tell them all the things they're
doing wrong. You're there because you want to make a difference.
The nineties in opposition is hard graft, but in a
way it helped me decide what kind of politician I
wanted to be, and I write about one of the
moments where I decided that actually, yes, I was thin skinned.
In the debating chamber was a really hard place to be.

(17:07):
But there was an experience I had where I was
the opposition spokesperson on child protection issues. It was a
horrific case in the news of a mother who had
abused her child, but she claimed that in her defense
that at some point she'd written to the minister who
was in charge to tell them that she was worried
she would do something, and therefore the minister could have

(17:30):
stopped it. I remember the news outlet coming to me
and saying, we want to interview you about this. What
will you say? And I said, well, I'd say that
we need to fix this, this and this about our system.
And they said yes, but will you attack and blame
the minister? And I said no, because I know a
minister gets thousands of letters and she can't be held

(17:50):
personally responsible for what has happened here. I just don't
think that's right. And they said, well, that's not really
what we're after, so they didn't interview me at all,
and so it was really it was just a really
stark example for me where if I was going to

(18:12):
engage in a particular solo politics, which for me was
you know, it was about about the issues, not about
the personalities, not just blaming another politician every turn, but
trying to solve problems that that might mean, no, I'm
not that successful. And I decided I was okay with that,
and so no, I never saw myself becoming prime minister,

(18:36):
but I never believed that I would tick the boxes
for it either. But that was something I made peace with.

Speaker 1 (18:42):
Yeah, well, speaking of prime minister, so let's fast forward
to twenty seventeen. You had a life changing moment, which
one there were a few that year, was very we're
going to get to the first one. Okay, Yeah, there's
a couple down the road, the current leader of the
leader party tasks you privately and says, look, I'm stepping down.

Speaker 3 (19:08):
I want you to taake No, he toys with it.
He doesn't even say I'm stepping down. It's it's it's
my it's my birthday. This is such a shallow thing
to remember, but it was my birthday.

Speaker 1 (19:20):
And didn't even wish you.

Speaker 3 (19:23):
And we get our internal poll numbers and then we're
in the early we're in the early twenties, and just
for context, we're twenty points behind the government and the
election is in seven weeks and that's that's a lot
of ground to make up. And when we got that poll,
I was his deputy at the time. He first I
sent him a text message, you know, chin up, Andrew.

(19:46):
Everything will be fine. You know, I saw myself as
number one cheer squad. We just need to get out
onto the campaign trial. And I get this message back,
can you come to my office? And even then I thought, oh,
he's not going to wish me heavy birthday, and so
off I go to his office and he didn't say
to me, I'm resigning. He said, I don't know if

(20:08):
I can do it. And I think maybe you should
do it, And that ruined the rest of my day,
and I immediately went into all of the reason. Can
you imagine? I thought, voters, you know, seven weeks out
from an election, you've had the same leader for an
entire term, and then seven weeks out, you know, up

(20:31):
and resign and put someone else in terrible idea few guys,
I didn't mean that, and so I walked away from
that conversation believing I had convinced him. But then a

(20:56):
week later he came to work and he quit, and
then he nominated me, And so that was that.

Speaker 1 (21:04):
That was the shock and what was going through your
mind because you know so much of your stories like
I want person who doesn't want to be prime minister
to be prime minister, right, that's kind of like the
psychology around it, like we want someone who is in
it for not to quote the Bachelor, but for the
right reasons, right, And so I feel like you were

(21:25):
in it for the right reasons because you really didn't
want this job. You did not want him to resign. No,
And so was it again that sense of duty that
propels you forward.

Speaker 3 (21:35):
Yeah, you know, I talk a lot about imposter syndrome
and a confidence gap, and naturally the question comes, well,
if you experience those things, how do you find yourself
in the position of becoming a member of Parliament, which
is a fair question, and then becoming Prime Minister, which
is a very fair question. And the answer I'd always

(21:55):
give is that the one thing that I would find
would overtake any self doubt I had was the strength
and pull of that sense of responsibility, the thing that
I've had since I was a that if someone needs you,
or asks you, or really calls upon you, then you
have a duty to steff up in that moment, even

(22:18):
if it means doing something that absolutely terrifies you. And
so I remember very quickly because if I could give
you a very brief timeline of this traumatic set of events.
You know, my boss, you know, there'd been some speculation
because he mused in that week that he had that
conversation with me. He mused in the media, they'd asked him,

(22:39):
your POB wasn't really bad. Have you ever thought about resigning?
And he was such an honest man he said yes.
And in politics, the moment you voice any doubt, I mean,
it's you know, the just they come for you, and
they came for him. So then a week of speculation
about whether he would stick around started. But I believed

(23:02):
he was going to stay, and in fact, he got
off the plane that Tuesday morning and walked through the airport.
I heard him on the radio. A journalist asked him,
what are you doing, and he said, I'm staying and
I thought phoo, And then I got a phone call
to say, no, he's not. And so within two hours roughly,

(23:24):
I was down in front of a podium giving my
first statement as the new leader of the Labor Party
and candidate to be Prime minister. And so I did
not do that little hoopy noise, but I do remember thinking, right,
you know, there had been a period over that week
where I just allowed myself to think, what if he
does this, water are you going to do? And so

(23:46):
the moment he did, I just had to switch. There
was no room for self doubt, there was too indulgent.
It just now had to switch to doing the job.

Speaker 1 (23:57):
One of my favorite reflections is that because you had
such a short time frame, right you were seven weeks
out from the general election, say that you did not
have time to respond to with the polling sadder with
the survey satter with the focus group sadder. But how
it is you ought to be right? You say, like
you had no choice but to just be yourself.

Speaker 3 (24:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (24:19):
Yeah, because there's no time for any of that kind
of prep.

Speaker 3 (24:22):
And I'd seen that happened to leaders before, really great
people who really knew who they were when they came
into the job. But then there was a push in
the pull of h you know, branding yourself in a
particular way. I did benefit from having been in politics
for a while, but even if you've been in for
nine years. I think at the time that I became leader,

(24:43):
like my prefood prime minister numbers were like eight percent,
So that was probably both a name recognition issue and
a popularity issue. But with seven weeks you've just got
to crack on. And I think if anyone had come
to me and said, right, well, you need to buy
a suit for starters, I'm not sure I would have

(25:06):
to be honest. I think I was pretty Did they
point to do it on my own tomb? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (25:11):
No pants suits?

Speaker 3 (25:13):
I no, I didn't buy. Here I am now in
my full blown corridor suit. I know I didn't. For
a long time, I didn't own I didn't own a
suit when I was in politics.

Speaker 1 (25:24):
Yeah, backstage she was asking me should do the heels
or the flats, and I was like, you're not prime
minister anymore. Where the flats you disjuoy yourself. You had
years to wear heels. Okay, you're going to enjoy your feet.
Are going to be healthy tonight, girl.

Speaker 3 (25:37):
So okay.

Speaker 1 (25:38):
So then, because you alluded to how absolutely bonkers twenties,
I've been told not to swear because of public radio.
So bonkers is going to be my new worth? Absolutely
bonkers twenty seventeen was well, all of this was going
on in your personal life. You and your husband were
navigating fertility challenges, right, and you'd been open with the

(26:00):
public about your desire to one day become a mom,
which sort of made it fair game for people to
ask you about it.

Speaker 3 (26:07):
And I had not been open about fertility chilling, yes.

Speaker 1 (26:10):
Just about wanting to be a Mom's about yeah, yeah, I.

Speaker 3 (26:13):
Asked about whether I wanted to be a mom. I figured,
I figured there's only so much information you should but yeah, yeah, And.

Speaker 1 (26:19):
So so it was kind of fair game to you know,
it was at least a topic they could ask about
because you had made it made no secret of the
fact you'd like to be a mom. And you know,
I've watched some of these YouTube clips of reporters, journalists,
you know, asking pretty aggressive questions, making bold proclamations about
what women, you know, ought to tell employers, et cetera,

(26:44):
et cetera. So tell me first of all what kinds
of questions you received, and then what your response was.

Speaker 3 (26:51):
Yeah, I mean that was you know, that was one
of the realities of being in public life is these
always these things going on behind the scenes that you're
never really talking about. Yeah, And so I remember the
day after I became lead of the Labor Party, I
was doing a big round of media and I was

(27:14):
sitting in the green room ready to do an interview,
and the day before someone had asked me about my intentions.
You know, what's going to happen now you wanted to
be mother and now you're the leader of the Labor Party,
And I kind of scooted around the question. But in
this morning TV show they started having a conversation about
whether or not it was okay to ask me that question,
and one of the broadcasters on the panel had said, well,

(27:36):
I think it should be okay to ask any woman
that question when you employ them. And I was in
the green room and I still remember that came through
on the television screen in the corner, spinning around my
chair and just becoming just ful of rage and brand

(27:57):
my presecretary, who was there to kind of introduce me
to New Zealand is the potential new prime minister. I
could see him his face he just went white and
he just swent no, no no, And I said, Mike, no,
no no. And next thing we know, I'm on the

(28:22):
stair and I didn't have a plan. I didn't know
quite what I was going to do at this point.
They brought me and I sat down and then went
straight on air and they introduced this question and I said, look,
you can ask me that question because I have chosen
to put that conversation on the table, but.

Speaker 1 (28:43):
You and out came the yeah you did the finger.

Speaker 3 (28:48):
I just you know, I think what happened was in
that moment all of the times where anyone had ever
asked me a question that was gender, that anyone asked
me about my relationships or my clothing, or portrayed me
in a cartoon as a ring girl in a bikini
with stilettos or implied I was, you know, tokenistic all
of those times when I'd never put speck on him

(29:09):
because I didn't want to be seen as humulus or
I didn't want to be just seen as someone who
is calling themselves a victim because they are a woman.
All those times where I did nothing suddenly turned into
that you and I really went him. I really went
him in that moment on behalf of all women.

Speaker 1 (29:30):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I encourage all you why he was
going to cry. I encourage you all to fy this
clip on YouTube. I may or may have not watched
it many times. It's deeply, deeply gratifying.

Speaker 2 (29:50):
You're listening to Dame Jacinda Ardern, new Zealand's former Prime minister.
This is City Arts and Lectures.

Speaker 1 (29:57):
The anecdote you just shared, I think is reflective of
a broader trait that you have, which is you had
a kind of say it like it is throughout and
even before you became prime minister, you had this attitude.
I mean there was a press conference where your credibility
was being questioned right, people were saying or could you
actually credibly lead you know in New Zealand? And then

(30:21):
you're like yeah, dude, they wouldn't put my name. I
wouldn't have been nominated if this weren't the case. And
then they said, well, you've kind of made no secret
of the fact that you don't even really want the job.
And your response is awesome. You're like, I'm clearly taking
on like the worst job right now, you know, how
could you not? And to just hear someone say it

(30:42):
so matter of factly it was really impressive.

Speaker 3 (30:45):
And that I remember walking down to the press conference,
I mean and walking down and just knowing this is
make l Brake, that my first press conference was a
test and if I did not demonstrate absolute confidence in
my ability to do that job, and I knew what
would come at me. I was thirty seven. I was
thirty seven years old, you know, on the grand scheme

(31:07):
of you know, political years, you know, which kind of
like dog years. I was still accept the reverse. I
was still quite young to be taking on a role
like that, and.

Speaker 1 (31:20):
Having started in politics at fourteen, I mean, really were
a veteran.

Speaker 3 (31:23):
But what I will say is though, as I walk down,
and this this is a gift. As I walked down,
I did not think that one of the things I
would have to defend was that I was a woman,
and I did not think that because New Zealand had
elected and had had two previous female prime ministers, and
so that was I did not feel like burden.

Speaker 1 (31:45):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, what just in that moment though, I
just wanted to like, what gave you the courage to say,
I'm clearly taking on like the worst of in politics?

Speaker 3 (31:56):
And I always feel like I have to say it
was I was taking on the leader of the opposition,
which is the worst of being a prime minister is amazing. Yeah,
leader of the opposition is terrible. Yeah, you know, I
think for me, I thinkrobably the most important point that
I was trying to make in that moment was that,
you know, for all of their questioning why you know,

(32:18):
are you capable of doing this? Can you do this?
I got the same question about five different ways, and
in the end I thought, well, I might put it
back to them. So yes, I gave that answer, but
I also just said to them, would you like to
tell me why I can't do this? Because after a
while I thought this one's probably inching towards a question

(32:39):
that's about, you know, whether I've had enough experience and
I've been in politics longer than the last Prime minister
who had done the job before bil English, yet my
youth I could see playing out in that line of questioning.
But there was the only way I was going to
be able to convince anyone was by proving it. I

(33:01):
felt that from that moment, and so everything became a
test and approved. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:05):
Yeah, And the reason I asked is I feel like
sometimes we put poly Tiians through these unfair purity tests
where you know, they need to take on these jobs
and they need to love every minute of it and
the need to relish. But I just like that you
just basically said, this is really hard, but I feel
a sense of duty to do it. That's why I'm
doing it right. That to me, that is actually the
purest set of intentions. Okay, So a little bit of

(33:29):
time passes, several weeks and a few days before the
results of the general election are going to be announced.
You are in the bathroom of your friend's house. Yes,
and you're staring down at a pregnancy stick. Yes, because
you don't have enough on your plate. Yeah, So can
you just tell me about that totally?

Speaker 3 (33:51):
I really thought about this as well, but I thought,
you know, where do I start this? Where do I
start the story? And I thought the first line feels
really important? Are you really say a lot with the
first line? It was a standard bathroom? So what is
the most New Zealand way to kind of bring this

(34:12):
moment that actually was really significant down into this really
simple thing. It was a bathroom in Tower And that
little extra laugh you got was a New Zealander who
knows where Tower is and how unremarkable it can be. So,
you know, elections are a funny thing in New Zealand.
It's but like the German system, you don't always know

(34:33):
the outcome on election night, and that was the case
in twenty seventeen. So we've done really well, we'd lifted
our vote, but it wasn't clear cut on the night.
It was going to come down to the decision that
one minor party made, and so we went into a
period of negotiations which we're going to take about two weeks,
and I had no idea which way they were going,

(34:53):
no idea, And you can imagine the intensity of you
and a couple of colleagues being in a room across
the way from the person who's going to decide whether
you are going to become Prime minister. And I didn't
know this person well. He was a season politician, but
during the election campaign he had called me a hamburger

(35:14):
without the meat patty, which I assumed was not a compliment.

Speaker 4 (35:21):
You know what, I'm a vegetarian as a vegetarian, and
I okay, And so I just kept thinking, you know what,
in these circumstances, am I You know, how do I
conduct these negotiations? You know?

Speaker 3 (35:34):
I even remember bringing my friends famous jingl over it
like it's some kind of bakery bribery or something. But
we are about three days out from when we expect
these talks or conclude, and I just hadn't been feeling myself.
I just hadn't and I assumed it was exhaustion and serious.

(35:54):
But my friend worked in healthcare, and she assumed something
completely different. Now, because I'd had, you know, failed fertility
tripment and been told that I would not conceive naturally,
I thought that my view was completely rational, that I
was just tired. But no, in the middle of those negotiations,

(36:15):
I found out that I was pregnant, which was really
bad timing and a lot And I remember, I remember
so distinctly, as I sat on that, you know, on
the lid of that toilet, thinking you could not write
about this, and so I did.

Speaker 1 (36:36):
Yeah, what was it like sharing the news with your
husband Clark?

Speaker 3 (36:41):
So yeah, so many emotions, as you can imagine. He
was off filming. So he's a broadcaster and he had
a phishing show, which is you know, that's if we
call it in New Zealand that say, it's pretty tinny
when you managed to turn your favorite pastime into work.
So he would go away on ten day long fishing trips,

(37:04):
film them, put them on TV and call it a job.
So he was in Australia all of this leadership stuff
kicked off, and in fact, when I became nominated to
be leader of the Labor Party, he came up from
a free dive and the guy in the boat his Aussie.
Better call your missus mate, she's she's got a promotion.

(37:30):
I think we He did not find out through the
news that I was pregnant. I called him. I called
him and yeah, I told him over FaceTime that what
we all do? Yeah wow, yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:46):
Okay, all right. So then a few days later, the
results of the election election, what is it? What is
that like?

Speaker 3 (37:56):
Well, obviously a spoiler alert, I've become Prime Minister. You know,
it's something that moment I found out on the same
time everyone else did when it was announced live on
the six o'clock news. He broke into the news hour,
the leader of the party, the small party, and he

(38:18):
announced his decision. So, yeah, I watched it on the
news and Clark Clark filmed it, and I'm so glad
he did because every time it's now part of a
documentary that has been made, and every time I watched
that scene, I'm taken right back there to all those emotions,
which was elation and then just a second later, just

(38:42):
the weight of it on my shoulders straight away. Yeah, instant.

Speaker 1 (38:47):
There's this very sweet intimate moment where so in the
documentary Prime Minister, her husband kind of follows her around
the camquorder type thing and she's constantly resisting in the
videos int she's like, yeah, that's not happening right now.
But in one moment, he has a video in front
of you and you're like, so, I'm going to be

(39:09):
Prime Minister and I'm pregnant.

Speaker 3 (39:12):
Pregnant because it was only obviously three of us that
knew it. That pay Yeah, my friend Julia whose bathroom
I found myself.

Speaker 1 (39:20):
And it was a pretty standard back It was a
standard bick yeah about it, and Clark and I needed
to keep it that way, and in part because I thought,
you know, I was thirty seven.

Speaker 3 (39:32):
I was technically a geriatric pregnancy, that's what they call it. Yeah,
and you know, I was in a pretty stressful situation
and I just didn't know whether or not I would
stay pregnant. So for twenty weeks, those first weeks of
being Prime Minister, through some very aggressive morning sickness. Oh

(39:54):
my gosh, I hid it. Yeah I heard that I
was pregnant.

Speaker 1 (39:58):
Yeah. Wow. I of course want to talk about your
big policy achievements, but I want to first start by
talking about your very unique leadership style. Kind of the
ethos of your leadership is, you know, kindness, empathy, deep listening,
just like your dad, the policeman did. You almost ran

(40:21):
on that platform right like your Highness is going to
be what I do. And it shouldn't have been such
a bold decision, but it was to kind of embody
that and to say, and especially to be a woman
who is being kind and feeling like, okay, that's not
going to cut against my competence, which is typically the

(40:42):
fear right that we had.

Speaker 3 (40:43):
I remember in that first presse conference thinking, I want
to break away from the negative, dogmatic space that you
end up and as an opposition politician, you know, I
don't know if this is a saying here, but you
end up you know, you're backing at every passing car.
You know, just everything is negative. And so I came

(41:06):
out and said, we are going to run a campaign
that is wilentlessly positive. But I also wanted to frame
how we did politics. And I think this I underestimated.
It matters enormously what you do when you're in politics,
but it actually also matters how you do it, and
how you conduct yourself. Is the message that you send
around where your priorities are. Yeah. So I had seen

(41:29):
a style of politics that felt to me that didn't
feel like it had people at the center, and people
wouldn't feel like it watching them. So the mantra of kindness, yes,
policy what we were going to do. But actually I
wasn't going to attack another politician's personal life or someone personally.
I said to our MPs, and you're not going to either, Well,

(41:51):
we're in office, we're going to try and raise the bar. Now,
I couldn't guarantee it would stay raised, but I knew
while I was there that was what I wanted to do.

Speaker 1 (41:59):
Well, yeah, yeah, so let's talk about COVID, right, really,
we have a vote on that. One of the pieces
of feedback I got from the audience in advance because

(42:20):
they just haven't talked about the pandemic enough, you know,
twenty twenty, that's been one of those topics that we
haven't explored. So you were dealing with so much imperfect information, right, So,
as someone who wants to make the right decision, is
trying to weigh pros and cons, is highly empathetic, doesn't

(42:42):
want to cause harm, how do you even begin to
craft a response? And I'm talking at the first the
first outbreak, right, yeah, what is the decision making apparatus
you even use?

Speaker 3 (42:56):
I mean, the difficult thing was the speed, the speed
which this was coming at us. You know, I remember
reading trying to track, even through BBC articles, what was
happening in Wuhan. You know, we were getting our own information,
but I read as much international news as I could,
as much science as I could, to try and understand,

(43:17):
to understand what we were dealing with. COVID came to
us later, though, it came to us in February, the
twenty eighth of February of twenty twenty, so the rest
of the world was already feeling the effects and it initially, Remember,
everyone was flattening the curve, that idea that we could
control it, that it might come in, but you're trying

(43:37):
to just keep your lumbers low enough that you can
keep your hospitals sustaining, meeting the demand. And that was
everyone's grand, grand plan. And then we watched is that
our value showed us how infectious this illness was. And
I still remember and I wrote about it because it's
so stark in my mind. My chief science advisor coming

(43:59):
in to see me in March and just sliding across
to me a graph that showed me that we wouldn't
be able to flatten the curve and if we tried,
tens of thousands of people would die. And so the
calculation was very simple for me and very simple for
all of us that you know, So really in politics

(44:23):
do you draw a direct line between your decision making
and someone's mortality, But that was one of them. And
so that told us that we had to try something
else and if we failed, we would just simply end
up where everyone else was already. We had the gift
of time. We needed to use it. And that was
how we came to an elimination strategy, simply because I

(44:44):
didn't want the equivalent of, you know, the casualties of
a world war for that generation of New Zealanders. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (44:53):
Yeah, you won re election in the middle of the pandemic.
New Zealand had some of the lowest cases of COVID
nineteen thanks to border controls and social distancing. As more
various emerge and lockdowns continue, and of course public sentiment
changed and frustration grew. Frustration grew worldwide with all of

(45:15):
the variants, of course, but there were these This is
the part of the documentary where you know, I, as
a viewer, just got the most emotional watching the protests
against lockdowns and vaccine woarves mandays in front of the parliament.

Speaker 3 (45:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (45:29):
Well, lockdowns were reminiscent of January sixth. It's interesting lockdowns
weren't in use when it happened, and we use them sporadically,
so we'd a situation news on we didn't have COVID,
so when a COVID case came in, we would try
and isolate, you know, what had happened.

Speaker 3 (45:44):
And who might have been in contact with it, so
that the rest of the country could keep going about
their lives. But we did have a period that was
a bit more prolonged for our major city. But by
the time we had that protest, we were done with them.
We'd reached ninety percent vaccination. We had required healthcare, education,
and border workers to be vaccinated, though, and there were

(46:06):
people who just disagreed with mandates. Stand why that's debated.
It is a really significant decision to make. But we
had an occupation that became violent. It lasted several weeks.
It was at the same time as the blockade in Canada,
and it was unlike anything I'd seen in New Zealand.
They hung a noose up on the four Court of

(46:28):
Parliament that was intended for me, and I remember as
I looked out on it, thinking and yet all I
ever wanted to do was just keep people safe, you know,
save people's lives. But there was a part of me
that actually recognized that that's what they thought they were
doing too. They thought vaccines took lives, many of them
not all, but many, and so even then I could

(46:51):
see there was some common ground, as much as we
couldn't talk to each other about it because the disinformation
was so entrenched. And one reflection I have in this
environment that we're in now is that one of the
big challenges we have is our ability to still converse
and have a starting point in a healthy democracy of

(47:14):
believing in the same facts as that starting point, identifying
the same problems. We now are talking past each other
because of the information environment we're in. Social media did
not start the problem, but they have a big role
to play. I believe they are not just postmen. They
are publishers. And where the publisher comes responsibility. So all

(47:46):
absolutely as governments, we need to wear the consequences of
our decisions. I just think every player on the field
needs to take responsibility for the roles they've.

Speaker 1 (47:55):
Played to Another challenging period was in March of twenty eighteen,
there is a terrorist attack on masked in Christchurch in
eastern New Zealand. Fifty one people were killed. It was
the deadliest mass shooting in New Zealand's history, and within
weeks you were able to change the country's gun loss.

(48:31):
We had not done that in this country, despite elementary
school kids being brutally murdered. So how did you do that?
Do you tell?

Speaker 4 (48:47):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (48:48):
I mean March fifteen, you know, was one of the
most devastating experiences of my life and for New Zealand,
I think it will remain just one of the darkest
periods in our history. And for those who might want

(49:09):
a little bit more context, a white supremacist from Australia
came to New Zealand because he saw us as too
inclusive and too multicultural, and so he legally obtained several
Ar fifteen's and he targeted Friday prayers to maximize the
number of victims, and he took the lives of fifty
one members of our Muslim community, and he broadcast it.

(49:32):
He live streamed it for seventeen minutes on Facebook before
it was before it was pulled down. You know, I
remember going into a briefing, you know, once I finally
managed to get I was in New Plymouth when it happened.
Once I finally managed to get to Wellington and into
a briefing. As I walked into the room, one of

(49:54):
the heads of my department said, Prime Minister, this will
define you remember thinking he's probably right, but I just
can't think about that right now. Right now, I just
have to be whateveryone needs me to be in this heavy, dark,
difficult moment. And one of the things I grappled with
at that time was, you know, not the decision to

(50:17):
go to christ Church, not the decision to call them
a terrorists because that was clear cut, Not the decision
to cover my head because that felt just like the
simple respectful thing to do in that moment. One of
the things I grappled with was whether or not I
was whether it would be okay if I wasn't able

(50:39):
to hold back my tears. And I, you know, just
internally grappled with that, didn't say much about it out loud,
but quietly worried, that's still so early on in my premiership,
that if I came to a moment where I was
just simply overcome, would it appear that I didn't have
the strength to carry New Zealand through this difficult time.
Would I be making it about me when it was

(51:01):
about the Muslim community. In the end, though, there's almost
actually nothing you can do about it, and maybe the
moment of being human, maybe that builds a bit of
trust and confidence because people are reminded that they're not
being governed by a robot. There's a human behind the
job as well, And then you're not a narcissist either,

(51:25):
You're just a humane But here is an important lesson
I think as well, though, and empathetic leadership. It is
not just simply the idea of bringing your authentic self
and your emotions and whatever to the job. Empathy is
nothing without action. It would have been pure performative if

(51:48):
it was just an expression of empathy. Empathy requires action,
and that was why we banned military style semi automatic
with happens at Amazing.

Speaker 1 (52:06):
Your sense of humor has been on display tonight. How
did you maintain your sense of humor during such a
tough post?

Speaker 3 (52:17):
You know, you've heard tonight about COVID, and you've heard
it heard about a horrific domestic terror attack, and you've
heard about the difficult things that cut and thrust of politics.
But there is real joy in it as well. You know,
I cannot imagine a job where you have the privilege

(52:39):
of both seeing an individual who might be struggling with
an issue, or an entire community or group of people,
and you have it within your power to do something
about that. Yeah, there are so few jobs where you
have that opportunity, and so everything else that happens around
the edges is in a way the politics. The real

(53:01):
meaning is that the job that you're doing day to day,
and there is joy in that, and I wish that
people got to see more of that. It's what sustained
me through fifteen years in politics, and it's the reason
why when people say to me, would you ever if
your daughter came to and said I want to go
to politics, That is the reason I would support her.
There is joy in politics too. We should talk about that.

(53:25):
We should talk about it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (53:27):
Wow, many people were surprised when you decided to step
down as Prime minister. Can you tell us a bit
more about that decision?

Speaker 3 (53:36):
Do you know one of those things where I think
people always look for the one thing which is so understandable,
you know, the tidy little tied up with the bow,
the reason why you left. But for me, it was
a lot of things, and the easiest way I can
explain it is that all of the things I valued
about leadership, the things that I thought were important, you know, curiosity,
not being defensive, you know, maintaining that open mind and

(54:00):
the importance of having enough in reserve when things go array.
I could feel those depleting and so I really added
to question whether or not that meant that it was
time to go. The thing I struggled with is I
felt a responsibility to stay, because when you're worried about
whether will you know people are telling you you have
to fight in the next election, and so that was

(54:23):
on my mind. The small group of people I could
tell that I was thinking about it, my chief of staff,
my deputy Prime Minister, and my now husband. None of
them supported me to leave, and so it was a
very lonely decision. Sure, but I'll tell you if you
have ever been in a role that responsibility took you

(54:44):
to and it's those are the hardest roles to leave.
And so it was only when I thought about it
through the lens of the responsibility. I had to also
know when it was time to go that that was
an act of responsibility as well that I allowed myself
permission to leave. So that was the decision.

Speaker 1 (55:07):
Yeah, I really love that sentiment, and you know, we
forget sometimes that like staying in the job, the status quo,
that is a choice itself right, So quitting feels like
the decision stupping down, but it's actually a decision to
also stay. And there is an opportunity cost on staying

(55:28):
or maybe you know, cost your well being or what
have you. So knowing when it's time to leave it
is a huge part of Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (55:36):
Absolutely, I did not think that it would it would
be such a topic of conversation, but I do think
it would be great if politics came with a range
of off ramps. Because the off ramps in our system
I can't speak to anyone else's, but in New Zealand,
you basically have to lose or die. Then no one quits.

(56:01):
And I think in part there's a lot of pressure
often on yesterday, but also there's an assumption that once
you have power, you won't give it up. I see
it differently. If you flip out the word power with responsibility,
then there will eventually be a time that you hand
that better and over.

Speaker 1 (56:17):
Yeah, you have spent the last two years living in America.
Just sinda, we don't deserve you here, but thank you
for coming anyway. You've been a fellow at Harvard. You've
actually built this like young group of empathetic leaders, you're
thinking about tech and AI, and just tell me a
little bit about what your time has been like. You're

(56:37):
working with young people and inspiring them and trying to
renew their commitment to pop up service.

Speaker 3 (56:43):
Being here has been a gift. It's been a gift
for lots of reasons, in part because you don't actually
have a lot of time to think and learn when
you're a leader, and just the time to reflect has
been really important and learn about. You know, if I
am in the privileged position of imparting to others some
lessons from leadership, how can I, you know, put a

(57:05):
put a bit more theory behind that as well. I
now run a fellowship on empathetic leadership. I started it
last year and we started with Europe after the EU elections,
and we had fourteen existing politicians, many of them quite senior,
all of them who believe in empathetic leadership, but not
all of them who believe they could be successful and

(57:26):
do it. And I have found such joy in their
work because it reminded me that there are good people
out there who now deserve a network of support around them,
and if voters are given a chance to vote for them,
we'll find their success too, and so that is the
kind of thing that I'm now spending my time on

(57:47):
and being able to have the space to do it
out of here, out of the US has been a gift.
So it's been a great place to be and great
people to be amongst.

Speaker 1 (57:58):
So thank you, of course, so I can take credit
for You're so welcome.

Speaker 3 (58:06):
So in New Zealand we do that. If you come
to New Zealand, consider that we are literally hosting you.
And so when you say your country is so beautiful,
we'll say as if we designed it ourselves. Thank you,
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (58:20):
Well. Unfortunately that is all the time we have for tonight,
but I want to extend so much gratitude. I'm so
grateful to you for having joined all of us tonight.
This has been such a wonderful, dynamic, warm audience. And yes,
please come back again soon to thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (58:40):
Thank You've been listening to Dame Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand's
former Prime Minister, in conversation with doctor Maya Shanker. This
program was recorded at the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San
Francisco on June ninth, twenty twenty five.

Speaker 1 (59:05):
These broadcasts are produced by.

Speaker 2 (59:07):
City Arts and Lectures inciation with KQED Public Radio San Francisco.
Executive producers are Kate Goldstein Brier and Holly Mulder Wallin.
Alexandra Blackman is Director of Design and Communications. Assistants provided
by Mark Spirou Sidney Goldstein, Technical director Stephen Eckert. Our

(59:28):
post production director is Nina Thorson. The recording engineer is
Jane Heaven. Theme music composed and performed by Pat Gleeson.
City Arts and Lectures founding producer is Sidney Goldstein. City
Arts and Lectures programs are supported by grants for the
Arts of the San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund. Additional funding

(59:50):
provided by the Bernard Oscher Foundation, Barry Trout and the
Friends of City Arts and Lectures. Support for recording and
post production of City Arts and Lectures is provided by
Robert Mahler Anderson and Nikola Miner.

Speaker 1 (01:00:05):
To attend a live.

Speaker 2 (01:00:06):
Program or for a list of up coming guests, visit
our website at Cityarts dot net. That's Cityarts dot net.