The soft power of strong leaders

Fast Company

7 hours ago

It's tempting to think of leadership as synonymous with power. But according to Jacinda Ardern, the former prime minister of New Zealand (2017–2023), there's a big difference between the two. Power, she says, comes mostly from holding rank. As such, once an official is elected, power can quickly become passive. Leadership, on the other hand, takes hard work and swift action, combined with a willingness to collaborate.
At the recent Think Conference hosted by IBM, Ardern spoke with Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures (parent company of Fast Company) about her unexpected journey to power and the qualities that mark an effective leader. Her approach combines strength and decisiveness with empathy and thoughtfulness—qualities not always associated with successful leaders. Here are three key takeaways from the conversation.
1. Your perceived weaknesses may be your secret strengths.
In 2017, Ardern was elected deputy leader of New Zealand's Labour Party. Five months later, with just seven weeks until the next national election, the party's leader, Andrew Little, resigned. He asked Ardern to replace him.
'My immediate instinct was absolutely not,' Ardern said. The way she saw it, there were countless reasons to decline. She'd have to craft a new party manifesto. The debates would be too much pressure. She was too sensitive to be prime minister.
Little nominated her anyway, and she won. To her surprise, the imposter syndrome she'd initially felt became the basis for many of the qualities that allowed her to be an effective leader. 'During my time in office, that little confidence gap gave me humility,' she said. 'And that meant I had no trouble bringing in experts to advise me. I would overprepare to make sure I understood every issue we were facing in as much detail as I could. And that meant when it came time to make a decision, I was clear and decisive.'
That sensitivity Ardern worried about? 'That was empathy,' she said. 'And if there's something I believe the world needs more of right now, it's empathy.'
2. Opposing views are vital in times of crisis.
Crisis management often requires collaboration with groups who haven't historically been allies. Early in Ardern's tenure as prime minister, New Zealand suffered an outbreak of Mycoplasma bovis, a bacterial disease that causes serious health issues for cattle. The cattle industry represents a significant portion of the New Zealand economy, and the outbreak threatened to cost the sector millions of dollars. Ardern had a choice: eradicate the disease, which would have had a huge financial and emotional impact on the lives of affected farmers, or let the country learn to live with the disease.
'Traditionally, my party didn't always have the greatest relationship with our farming community,' Arden said. 'But my first decision was they have to be at the table, and we have to make this decision together.' After consulting with farmers, she decided to try to eradicate the disease, providing financial compensation and support to those impacted by the decision. New Zealand is now on track to be the first country to eradicate Mycoplasma bovis.
Ardern used the same open, collaborative approach to help solve other crises her country faced while she was in office. Her government's response to the Covid outbreak is widely recognized as one of the most successful in the world. She also helped the country navigate a 2019 mass shooting in Christchurch, which led to a nationwide ban on military-style semi-automatic weapons.
3. Governments can learn a lot from businesses—and vice versa.
We're living in a moment when many argue that governments should be run more like businesses. In some respects, Ardern agrees. In particular, she emphasized, governments could be more effective if they were as nimble as successful businesses. In her view, a big reason so many people feel disillusioned by government is their failure to respond quickly to the public's needs, especially when it comes to financial insecurity.
By the same token, she pointed out, businesses could stand to learn a few things from well-run governments. Businesses tend to take relatively short-term views, without always considering the long-term consequences of their decisions. 'You may not be thinking about the knock-on effect of your line of business, the environmental impacts of growing data centers, the social impact of social media platforms,' Ardern said. 'We need people to think beyond a five-year or 10-year timeframe and think about everything that might go wrong, not just what might go right.'
Successfully threading this needle comes back to making sure that empathy is part of the process. 'So many of the issues we're facing in the political climate is because we have not delivered and responded to the general public's needs,' she said. 'We need to look at and meet the needs of a wide range of stakeholders.'