The Leader in the Room: Seeing Jacinda Ardern Speak Live
There are moments in life when you walk into a room expecting to be impressed and walk out feeling genuinely changed. Seeing Jacinda Ardern speak live was one of those moments for me. I had admired her remarkable tenure as New Zealand’s Prime Minister, but nothing quite prepares you for the experience of being in the same space as someone who radiates that particular combination of warmth, intelligence, and quiet conviction.
Above everything else, I appreciate that on the keynote stage, she was a woman. Poised, genuine, and completely at ease, she talked as if she were sitting down with friends. She was utterly non-performative. In a world of carefully managed public figures, Ardern’s authenticity is touching.
Humble Beginnings, Extraordinary Vision
Both in person and in her book A Different Kind of Power (which I’m currently reading) Ardern talked about her upbringing, which shaped the kind of leader she became. She grew up in Murupara, a small, economically disadvantaged town in New Zealand’s Bay of Plenty region. Her father was a police officer. Her family was not wealthy, not connected, not privileged in the ways we often assume great leaders must be. Because of all of that, she developed a profound empathy for the people she would one day govern.
Her upbringing was the foundation of her leadership style, guided by her father who taught her that the greatest tool he has is his words. In her book, she writes about the importance of truly understanding the lives of ordinary people as a lived reality. You cannot fake that kind of understanding. You either know what it is to struggle, or you don’t. Ardern knows.
Leading Through Crisis With a Baby on Her Hip
During her time as Prime Minister, Ardern faced a near-unimaginable sequence of crises: the Christchurch mosque shootings, the White Island volcanic eruption, and then a global pandemic that required her government to make life-and-death decisions at extraordinary speed. She navigated all of it while also becoming only the second elected world leader in history to give birth while in office.
In A Different Kind of Power, Ardern reflects honestly on the weight of holding the two roles of mother and head of state simultaneously. She describes the exhaustion of caring deeply about millions of people while also trying to be fully present for the small person at home who simply needed her mother. Her candour on the stage is a mirror to the narrative voice and tone of her book. She does not pretend it was easy. She does not pretend she had it all figured out. She had a deep sense of purpose and a support network that she leaned on without shame.
Hearing her speak about what society typically sees as leadership flaws–empathy, emotion, imposter syndrome was inspiring. She talked about the grief of Christchurch and the quiet reality of being a new parent.
A Different Kind of Power, Indeed
The title of her book is purposeful. Ardern has always represented a departure from the loud, combative, chest-thumping style of dominant leadership that mistakes aggression for strength. Her power has always come instead from listening, from empathy, from the willingness to say “I don’t know” and “I’m sorry” in moments when other leaders would double down.
She held the attention of an audience of thousands with nothing more than her words and her presence, exemplifying for everyone in the room what it looks like when someone leads from their humanity. She never tried to appear invulnerable. Her honesty made her more relatable and compelling, more trustworthy, more genuinely inspiring than any polished political speaker I have ever seen.
I left the keynote with my signed copy of A Different Kind of Power tucked under my arm and a feeling of hope and inspiration. Ardern is a reminder that the kind of leadership the world so desperately needs is not some impossible ideal. It is in the most ordinary life experiences so many of us share. She is a name, a face, and a story that began in a small town in New Zealand. If you ever get the chance to see Jacinda Ardern speak, do not hesitate. It’s more likely that you’ll have the opportunity to read her book, which I strongly recommend. It will leave you a little more hopeful about the world.