For more than a year, the image of New Zealand 's Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, appeared almost daily in news reports around the world for her empathetic leadership and bold, yet deeply humane, approach in the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic throughout 2020.
Their "Covid-zero" strategy worked extraordinarily well during that period, when the country quickly closed its borders, imposed strict quarantines, and virtually eliminated the virus for over a year. In doing so, it saved thousands of lives while the rest of the world faced hospital collapses.
The strategy transformed Jacinda into a global symbol of effective leadership, based on protecting the population and the idea that the state should prioritize the well-being and happiness of the nation rather than just GDP. However, when Covid-19 finally spread in 2021 and the economic and psychological costs accumulated, many began to see her measures no longer as protection.
Initial success created expectations that were impossible to sustain, and the prime minister was accused of excessive control, while far-right protests plummeted her popularity. Even so, New Zealand had one of the lowest Covid-19 mortality rates in the OECD, employing strategies used in other countries to preserve the capacity of its healthcare system.
Although his policy of confronting the pandemic was later revised and replaced by mitigation measures as it progressed, the initial and final figures, with few cases, few deaths (3,249 in a population of 5 million) and periods without community transmission, stood out on the global stage as an example of an effective response during the early stages of the crisis under his leadership.
The story of how all this happened arrives in Brazil through the book *A Different Kind of Power – Memoirs of a Humanist Leader *, written by Jacinda Ardern herself. It is primarily a political autobiography of the woman who became the youngest head of government in her country's history, at only 37 years old, and who balanced motherhood with the challenges and pressures of power.
The daughter of a police officer and a school cook, raised within the Mormon Church in a decaying community in the small town of Murupara, Jacinda describes her upbringing as that of a conscientious, anxious person who was never truly sure she was good enough for the positions she held in life. It was no different when she became prime minister.
She describes the poverty around her, gang violence, and the importance of family in her upbringing as experiences that influenced her political and human values. In her teens, she joined the Labour Party and dedicated herself to volunteer work in election campaigns and as a researcher.
She then studied in Arizona, in the United States , and later worked in politics in the United Kingdom , before being persuaded to include her name on her party's list as a potential MP. At least in her version, she became one almost by chance and ended up leading her party in her early 30s, thanks to an "overwhelming sense of responsibility".
Written with unusual candor, such as the moment when she waits for the results of a pregnancy test sitting on the toilet at a friend's house and speculates about her political rise that could lead her to become Prime Minister for the Labour Party, her account is fluid and tinged with humor and lightness throughout, which reinforces the personality trait that led her to the top of her country's politics.
The third woman to hold the post in over 150 years in New Zealand, Jacinda had a modest childhood in the countryside, rose in politics, and governed the country guided by the simple yet no less powerful principle of kindness: doing what is just, right, and necessary for the majority of the population.
In putting this into practice, he invested heavily in education, fought inequalities, and positioned himself among the world leaders in the fight against the pandemic and climate change.
Between moments of doubt and self-confidence, and the formative years that influenced her empathetic approach to leadership, she also highlights what it was like to be a prime minister who gave birth while in office and how she balanced motherhood, work-family, and the public and private pressures of that period – hiding her pregnancy for as long as possible to avoid sexist attacks against her.
Crises during her leadership included the eruption of the Whakaari/White Island volcano and the attacks on two Christchurch mosques, both in 2019. The second tragedy left 51 dead. Jacinda Ardern recounts how she led the nation through grief and pushed for swift changes to gun control laws after the attack.
If she governed differently, she resigned differently. In the final part of the book, the former minister recounts the escalating self-doubt and exhaustion she suffered during the pandemic, which included a suspected breast cancer diagnosis in late 2022, and how these events contributed to her decision to resign from her post in January 2023, because she “no longer had enough energy to continue.”
She also offers a series of reflections on leadership, power, and empathy, as well as insights and her hope to inspire future leaders to consider public service as a calling motivated by kindness and purpose. She seems sincere when she writes: “Throughout my short life I thought that at any moment I wouldn’t be able to cope and, regardless of what it was, I had no business getting involved in what I was doing.”
Therefore, “I believed I had a personality that was better suited to working behind the scenes. I was the person who discreetly and consistently did everything that needed to be done. I didn't have the strength to be a real politician. I wasn't politically savvy enough, nor was I strong enough. I was idealistic and sensitive.”
