Jacinda Ardern: Why world leaders need empathy

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? the History Bureau Putin and the Apartment Bombs listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts with the European Athletics Championships the Men's FIFA World Cup and the Commonwealth Games all taking place 2026 is shaping up to be a terrific year for global sport and the More Than The Score podcast will be following all the action bringing you interviews with sports stars and exploring the stories beyond the score sheets with the BBC's expert sports journalists More Than The Score from the BBC World Service.

1:05Listen now. Search for More Than The Score wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

1:31we are spending trivians on war and peanuts on peace. Wind power in the United States has been subsidized for 33 years. Isn't that enough? Solar for 25 years. That's enough. I don't have army. I don't have missile rockets. I have my body. I have my voice. I love singing. And so my goal was always to do better and better at it. I was still in an induced coma in hospital when the world was defining me. For this interview, I met Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand's former Prime Minister at our BBC studios in London. She became New Zealand's Prime Minister in 2017, the youngest female leader in the world at the time, and only the second ever to give birth as a leader.

2:14She made headlines for her empathetic leadership style, particularly in her handling of a mass shooting of Muslim worshippers in Christchurch in 2019. Now you're going to hear about her decision making around that crisis and also the Covid pandemic and how the hallmarks of her premiership stand up to scrutiny in the era of strongman politics. Her time as a leader was not without its critics. Ardern's tough stance on lockdown came under scrutiny in a recent inquiry. She's also been the recipient of much online hatred. By the time she resigned in 2023, after more than five years in post, she said that she no longer had enough in the tank and since then has engaged in global work focused on empathy and leadership and the prevention of online extremism.

3:04And now she is the star in her own documentary entitled simply Prime Minister. It felt like there was a moment in time where maybe it was important to rehumanise leadership and not to show necessarily or just that, you know, political leaders are fallible, but actually to say, well, if we are indeed human and we are, you should still have an expectation that you bring the values as a human that you expect that are important to you. And so I wanted to show that you could be human and you could also be kind and decisive and a mother imperfectly, but still, I think do a reasonable job.

3:48Welcome to the interview from the BBC World Service with Jacinda Ardern. In 2017, I'd been in politics for about nine years. I'd been a backbench MP in opposition for that time. and in a very quick succession. We were in an election year and I was made deputy leader of our party. And of course, much like the system here, it's not a given that if you're deputy leader, that's a trajectory to leadership. But come August, as we approached the election, our then leader, Andrew Little, decided that his chances of winning the election were too low. And so he came to work, essentially, as a short version, he came to work one day, he quit and he nominated me.

4:30And it was not a job I sought. I speak often of the fact that it's not a job I thought I was necessarily well equipped for either. But that's very different from a scenario where you suddenly find yourself in that position and know that it is your responsibility to step up to the plate and lead regardless. And what about then the step to becoming prime minister? On election night, it wasn't clear. It wasn't clear who would be able to command a parliamentary majority. And so we went immediately into negotiations that lasted about two weeks with one minor party talking with both us and our opposing national party.

5:07And at the end of those two weeks, making me the prime minister. But about three days out from that, that was when I found out I was pregnant. Astonishing. Yeah, it wasn't the word I used at the time, if I recall correctly. If you knew that you were pregnant, would you have been aiming to be prime minister? What do you think you would have done? Look, it's a good question. I remember thinking very, you know, this flash of thought coming into my head of what's the better scenario here? Is it better to find yourself as prime minister or is it better to find yourself pregnant in opposition? And I remember dismissing it very quickly as a selfish thought, because the idea that I would give up on the opportunity after nine years of building an agenda on inequality and homelessness and poverty and climate change to then reduce it down to such a personal, how does this affect me?

6:03I remember feeling a little ashamed for thinking of it in that way. Your term in office was tricky for a number of reasons. and one defining moment of your leadership was your response to the Christchurch mosque attacks where 51 people were killed. You received widespread praise for your empathy and your decisiveness, including that swift gun law change that you made. But at the time, were you thinking about those decisions that you were making in that way, thinking that I need to be empathetic here? I don't recall thinking about that particular question. You know, in the early hours, it wasn't clear whether or not it was a coordinated attack, whether there was more than one perpetrator.

6:46But it was only really a few hours in that I did start to think about how, after I'd seen some of the images from Christchurch, how do I ensure that I talk about this and give the reassurance people need without letting my own personal emotions come to the fore? No one asks you to be inhuman. In fact, they want you to bring your humanity and those values into your leadership. But they also just want clarity, decisiveness, action. And there is a place for both in leadership. Do you think that those values that you have, you know, you talked about them, empathy, kindness, honesty, do they hold up, do you think, in today's polarized political climate?

7:30More than ever, more than ever. And I think one of the challenges of this time and place and era that we're in at the moment is because, of course, what we're observing of that particular style of, for better want of description, strongman leadership, you know, we're seeing it in Western liberal democracies. We think, well, OK, because these are democracies, this must be what people are seeking. But I think we have to look beyond electoral outcome to some of the other markers that tell us how people are feeling about politics. And we've seen some of the highest levels of distrust in politics. We're seeing a high sense of grievance now.

8:07And as a result, you see when polled, people feel justified in hostile acts, in spreading disinformation, engaging in, even in some cases, in acts of public vandalism because they have that sense of grievance. So that to me says that it's pretty one-dimensional to say people are seeking that kind of leadership when so many other indicators tell us that they're not. And so there's a job to be done for people in politics, not to give in to the idea that what people want is almost this single-minded show of strength. Yes, they want strength, decisiveness, but I'd also like to think they want the same values they teach their kids.

8:46Curiosity, compassion. and all of those things can be held in a singular way in leadership as well. You've spoken about experiencing imposter syndrome and anxiety from a young age. Can you explain how that would manifest itself? Yeah, I always describe myself as a warrior, you know, just someone who worried about the world, worried about things. I think I use that language so as not to put myself necessarily to trivialise the experience of those who have a diagnosable condition or that experience with their mental health. But I do talk about, you know, as a kid who worried a lot or was a bit thin-skinned and pretty empathetic, you know, is there a place for you in politics?

9:28And I certainly, when I first came in, thought, I've chosen a really terrible career for all of these. If you have all of these character traits, actually, you feel quite, you know, suited to that environment. I remember coming out of the debating chamber one time and just feeling absolutely brutalised. Our debating chamber is a bit like the UK system. A couple of people in the chamber had a real personal go at me, and I came out thinking, oh, I have got to harden up. Otherwise, this is just going to be a misery. And I asked the toughest guy I knew in our team. His name was Trevor. He'd been around for decades.

10:02He kind of came across like a high school rugby referee. And I went and asked Trevor, and he was horrified at the idea that I saw him that way. But that's when he said to me, don't toughen up. don't try and build thick skin because if you do that you'll lose your empathy and I don't think I'd ever seen that perceived weakness as being attached to a strength and yet it was and so I just made the decision that actually I valued that strength more than the weakness it gave me and that I just needed to carry them both. I think that's some worry that when women talk about things like imposter syndrome even you know kindness empathy it reinforces those stereotypes about women being less confident or capable.

10:41And yet when you think about it, you know, if you're saying, look, I've got a bit of a confidence gap, I think maybe I might not be as prepared as I need to be for this particular role. Then that triggers a set of behaviours, you know, it triggers you towards preparation, research, bringing in others, experts, advisors. Essentially, you're expressing humility. Why in leadership would we want to enforce the idea that we should only have people who assume absolute knowledge, who lack the humility to seek the advice of others? Actually, I think we should seek that in leadership. And I understand that in expressing it, there might be a view that maybe voters will be less confident.

11:25Well, I'm talking about it now having led, hopefully now with a few proof points and not asking leaders to stand up every day and to publicly doubt themselves. But if they privately are, don't rule yourself out of leadership. Some of the best leaders I know brought that kind of humility to the job and we need more of it. Can we talk a little about your upbringing? You were brought up Mormon, something that you went on to reject it later. Can you tell me a bit about how that might have shaped you? I was brought up in a household with a strong sense of faith and community. And yes, I left in my early 20s, but I bear no ill will to that experience.

12:08And I can't tell you how much religion did or didn't shape me, but it certainly gave me a sense of service. Probably gave me a little bit of guilt. But I think, again, if you channel that in the right way, maybe it's not a bad thing. But it also gave me a respect for people who do have a strong sense of faith and personal belief. I happened to leave mine because I couldn't reconcile the church's position on issues of equality for the LGBTQI plus community. And in the end, my sense of fairness and justice and equality meant that I left, but with no ill will and no doubt with a lot of it having shaped who I was as a person.

12:56I'm a very good door knocker as well. I want to talk a bit more about Niamh, your daughter. You mentioned how you found out that you were pregnant. What was it like having that job and having a baby? Well, I guess I can't tell you what the alternative would have felt like because I only did it that one way. And maybe that was a bit of a blessing and a gift. I can tell you the first 20 weeks where I was new in the job of prime minister because of that. And because like anyone else, I didn't want to prematurely share news that I might not hold on to. You know, I tried for a long time to have a baby unsuccessfully.

13:37I was by definition a geriatric mother. I had all of that and I also didn't want anyone to think that the role I'd just been elected to hold wasn't important to me and so I hid it for 20 weeks through pretty bad morning sickness and nausea and not wanting to let on that in any way it was affecting me doing my job. I'm not going to lie, those first 20 weeks were hard but they were also doable. I wanted to be able to prove that you could both be a competent leader and a present mother simultaneously. The media and others did question whether you could do it. Yes, they did. But that wasn't my overwhelming experience of sharing with New Zealand that I would become a mother.

14:25I was very worried about making that announcement. Usually I felt like my intuition was pretty good on where the New Zealand public would be, but I had only managed to share that news with close family. And so I just felt like I'd lost my intuition. And so we made the announcement on Instagram. And the overwhelming response was just one of joy. My team who worked in the correspondence team reported that they'd never had so much incoming mail before. And they compiled it into a book for me. And it is so large that I have to put it on the bottom shelf of my bookcase because it requires reinforcement and a number of booties and little hats.

15:11And it's one of the reasons Niamh's middle name is Te Aroha, which just means the love in Māori because it was a way of acknowledging just the overwhelming response we felt when we shared that news. You're listening to the interview from the BBC World Service, people shaping our world from all over the world. If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story.

16:00What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. With the European Athletics Championships, the Men's FIFA World Cup and the Commonwealth Games all taking place, 2026 is shaping up to be a terrific year for global sport. And the More Than The Score podcast will be following all the action, bringing you interviews with sports stars and exploring the stories beyond the score sheets with the BBC's expert sports journalists. More Than The Score from the BBC World Service. Listen now. Search for More Than The Score wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

16:46For this episode of The Interview, I'm speaking to Jacinda Ardern. She came into the Woman's Hour studio in London on the day her documentary Prime Minister was premiering. Now, I've watched a preview of the film before the interview. I expected her to be warm and smiley. And, well, she was. But, of course, having spent her life in politics, having faced much online abuse, she was obviously aware of how her answers may be taken. But as you'll hear, she is candid, particularly about her emotions, something seldom heard from a world leader. OK, let's return to my conversation with Jacinda Ardern.

17:26It's Clark, your now husband, who captured a lot of the moments that we see in the documentary. Some of them are very personal, for instance, struggling with breastfeeding. Yeah. Why was it important for you to share those? And did you know at the time that you were going to make those into a film like this? Yeah, no. So my husband is a broadcaster, so he had his own fishing show. He was both in front of the camera and behind it. And when I suddenly became prime minister and when I suddenly became leader, he had the thought someone should capture this and if nothing else for us, for our family.

18:02I think you can see from the footage that there's not really a consciousness about what might happen to it. And that helps in a way because I'm obviously not that worried about the fact I'm in a bathrobe or I'm in bed or I'm breastfeeding, not realizing it would be one of the last times. You ask why was it important to capture it, you know, when the question came up of whether it should be turned into something. It felt like there was a moment in time where maybe it was important to rehumanise leadership and not to show necessarily or just that, you know, political leaders are fallible. but actually to say, well, if we are indeed human and we are, you should still have an expectation that you bring the values as a human that you expect that are important to you.

18:50And so I wanted to show that you could be human and you could also be kind and decisive and a mother imperfectly, but still, I think do a reasonable job. We saw what was happening for you as the COVID pandemic struck and New Zealand was known for having some of the strictest lockdowns closing borders. New Zealand's Royal Commission's inquiry's first report found the early response prevented deaths, but that some measures, including prolonged mandates, caused social and economic impacts and eroded trust. Do you, looking back, think the government ultimately struck the right balance across the pandemic?

19:27You know, I don't disagree with any of their findings. You know, one of the consequences of leadership in the pandemic, this was certainly the case. No one will ever say, hey, bang on. Or they really do anyway. But if you offered me the choice of the critique being you did too little or you did too much, as much as I'd rather that you get it perfectly right, if the only choice was between those two, I'd rather be accused of doing too much because that was always an aid of saving people's lives. You've faced unprecedented levels of abuse and threats, and it's been reported there have been a number of prosecutions.

20:06In the film, you talk about how your family paid the price. You moved to the USA, undertaking three fellowships at Harvard University, and you're now based here in the UK. Has that abuse influenced your decision to relocate? No. The opportunity came up to spend three months at Harvard and we thought, oh, that'll be a nice experience. And I know people speculate a lot about those decisions, But for any family who relocates for new opportunities or different jobs, you'll know there's a bunch of factors that play in. Globally, I think we saw those who governed during COVID did have a different experience than perhaps those who governed in a different period of time.

20:48That, I think, is what was unprecedented. And we did so at a time where there's a range of really difficult factors at play for politicians now. disinformation, the online environment, women overall having a very different experience in the online environment. So I don't think anything of that is unique to me. But I do think it requires thought and responses that mean that the political world isn't a place where women shy away from, because actually my overwhelming experience of being in politics was a positive one. Let's talk about when you resigned. You said that you did it because you didn't have enough energy in the tank.

21:28It came at a time when popularity in the polls was lowest. Your party had been waning in popularity. How much did those factors play a part in your decision not to fight that election? I think I had been lower than I was when I left. I'm not sure that that's an argument I should be making. But I think actually my recall is that when I left, my numbers were sitting about the same place as when I was first elected. But granted, off a pretty unprecedented 2020 election where, you know, there we got a 50 % of the vote, that was not a normal election. It was in the middle of COVID. I was very purposeful and wanting to leave at a time when actually there was nothing particularly at play.

22:12We were in a fairly regular part of the political cycle, relatively small margin with the other party, gearing up for a new election. That was the critical factor though. Going in, I felt like I needed to say, I'm here for another three. And I could have kept going, could have completed that term. But did I have another three years in me when the last five had felt like 10? And all those things I valued in leadership, curiosity and not being defensive, I just felt them waning. That was a big part of the decision. One other part, which I often find hard to articulate, is, you know, we were a progressive government.

22:52We did a lot, a lot. You know, we didn't just manage crisis. We increased paid parental leave. We did a huge amount on child poverty. We increased benefit rates. We banned conversion therapy. We decriminalized abortion. We engaged in drug reform. We banned smoking. We did a large number of things, including on indigenous rights, and I didn't want them to roll back. It's been reported in some newspapers that you could be the next Secretary General of the United Nations. That was a bit of a smooth segue there, wasn't it? What do you think about that? I've seen that speculative reporting and I have no idea what that's based on, but I would say no.

23:33That is not on the cards. We've talked about the fact that you went to the USA. You're now in the UK as part of Oxford University's World Leaders Circle. How do you think you can affect change when you're not in power? One of the things I often say is that particularly when you look at a really critical long term issue, like, say, climate change, where, you know, if you're an activist in that space, it's very easy to become disheartened if you feel that politicians aren't moving at the rate that's required. And my argument there is, of course, for an issue like that, politicians set the rules of the game.

24:06You know, they're the ones that are speeding the game up or they're slowing it down, but they are not the only players on the field. And the same holds for a number of issues. And so my point there being to anyone who's in civil society or the private sector, everyone has a role to play for some of those really significant, difficult issues that we need to address. When it comes to, though, how do you generally affect change when your area of concern might be political leadership in itself, I have a fellowship now where I work with people who are in politics. And my goal there is not only to support them in their roles, but to reinforce that those values that got them into politics are values worth holding on to.

24:46Because actually, there's not a lot of headlines over this, but I do believe that voters are looking for more compassionate leadership.

24:56Thank you for listening to the interview from the BBC World Service. You'll find more in-depth conversations on the interview wherever you get your BBC podcasts, including episodes with global leaders like President Donald Trump, President Lula da Silva and President Duma Boko. Until next time, bye for now.

25:29If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

26:24expert sports journalists. More Than The Score from the BBC World Service. Listen now. Search for More Than The Score wherever you get your BBC podcasts.