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Jacinda, welcome to Giant Ideas.
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Thank you very much for having me.
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I guess let's start with leadership.
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Do you have a particular philosophy of leadership that you've developed?
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Yeah, I mean I think I do.
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Ask me, you know, 4 years ago or 3 years ago, uh I might not have articulated it in the same way that I that I would now.
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And in part it's because so much about uh the way I chose to lead felt very intuitive to me and also felt very common sense.
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Uh but over the years observing some other particularly prominent leadership styles uh and finding increasingly an interest in this idea of empathetic leadership within a political frame, uh it's become clear to me that yeah, actually I I I feel very clear-eyed about the idea of and the value of uh empathetic leadership in politics, which we don't talk about that much.
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There's a bit of it in the private sector, a bit of it from uh the idea of of running, you know, large companies, but less so in the political frame. So, tell us about it.
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What is empathetic leadership?
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So, the way that I would describe it uh is uh of course values-based leadership.
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Uh the idea of building consensus, um uh the importance of transparency, uh the importance of bringing people with you in your decision-making, uh and of course the empathy element is is not the ability necessarily on every occasion to put yourself in someone
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else's shoes, but having that endeavor uh of being mindful constantly of the impact of decision-making uh and working hard to take a viewpoint that takes into account the uh the perspective of those you're governing on behalf of, and compassion. Yeah, simply put. Okay. Yeah, simply put. Okay.
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Resonates with us at Giant.
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One of our values is compassionate meritocracy, which we borrowed from McKinsey.
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So, we we definitely get what you mean.
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Others would would be skeptical perhaps.
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What do you think are some of the most common misconceptions about empathetic leadership?
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>> That it is inconsistent with the idea of strength or courage.
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Uh and that it is in some ways inconsistent with political leadership.
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Uh because if strength is absent, which I would argue it's not when you're an empathetic leader, but if strength is absent, people won't have confidence in you.
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Uh and my my argument is that you can be both a compassionate leader and uh a strong leader.
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That actually by you know, by definition if you are in politics, you have a level of resilience.
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Uh and in fact, when you are a compassionate leader, you're very motivated uh by what's brought you into politics.
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Uh and that can actually make you quite clear-eyed.
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So, counter this idea of being perhaps dithering or flaky, which is sometimes also a misconception, I find the opposite to be the case.
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We certainly agree with that, but why do you think arguably there is a lack of empathetic leadership in politics today? A couple of reasons.
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Uh and I'd say these two categories, and again, I I I'm always wary of talking too much in anecdote or observation, but unfortunately, there's not a lot of data for us in this space.
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Uh when it comes to um either what voters are seeking or the views of politicians in this area.
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We're actually doing a little bit of work with Oxford to try and build a bit more rigor as much as I can around this this idea.
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Um but the two two uh uh issues or categories I would put people into.
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One I would say there is a group of politicians who would be inclined to lead in this way, but uh for the fact that they're often in systems where they're told that a display of too much human emotion or too much compassion uh means they were unlikely to be successful.
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Voters won't vote for that.
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You need to display yourself to be a kind of a, you know, a bit more of a, you know, excuse the turn of phrase, but it's most commonly put, strongman style of leadership.
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So, there's that group who are probably masking what intuitively they considered to be the type of leadership they'd like to demonstrate.
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And the second group is actually those who, again, they quite comfortably co-opted because they believe that's the most successful way to manage and lead.
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Do you think that's harder for for women given the sort of strongman archetype?
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I do think that, I mean, you know, one of my arguments has always been that uh we should first and foremost consider the values in leadership uh that we want to prioritize, that we consider most important to us.
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And that regardless of gender, we should then have an expectation that those [clears throat] uh that we see those visibly in in leadership.
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I often uh often wonder why what we see in leaders is so different to what we teach our kids.
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And is that because we've been kind of over time we've acclimatized to the idea that you that curiosity and kindness just aren't things you get in politics, so therefore why seek it? Why expect it?
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Uh but uh in my mind, if we value those those characteristics, we shouldn't gender them.
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We shouldn't expect them solely to be held by women or be absent from uh from male leadership.
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Uh we should just expect them from leaders generally.
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They should be universal.
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They should be universal.
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I I do think I do wonder, however, again, no data behind this, I do wonder if we more often equate ideas of compassion and kindness with women.
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And I do wonder sometimes if that's why that idea of the strength element being absent might might be part of the mix as well.
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When you talked about the leaders we seek, I think that's interesting because I think these days people are so skeptical about politicians that there is not a sort of an expectation that these people are going to be role models.
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And and actually there's a sort of focus on okay, what is what outcomes concretely can they deliver for me?
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But I kind of think actually human beings crave leadership.
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People want to be led by people that they respect and they can follow.
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Did you find that Did you find >> I I agree and it's really interesting.
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I mean there's you know, a bit of a discussion out there, uh you know, the the book Abundance is uh I think raise a really interesting point uh around uh what it is we we need to be doing on behalf of voters.
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The way I would I would express >> Abundance by Ezra Klein. >> Yes.
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The way I would express it is delivery.
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And I think they they are right that for lots of reasons delivery has probably over the years become harder.
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I think at the same time that people's expectations have increased and their expectations around the speed at which you can shift the dial on some really intransigent difficult issues has increased.
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Uh and so you know, that is that is certainly something that politicians are experiencing and it is something that rightly leaders you know, voters are demanding.
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But I think we we shouldn't diminish at the same time that it's not just what we do, it's how we do it.
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And that's really interesting with some there are some surveys that show us for instance that voters would be willing to forego a certain amount of delivery in favor of integrity.
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So if if in the hierarchy of what they're seeking in leadership, integrity is still you know, way at the top of that list then that's something interesting to be explored.
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I think you're right though, people's expectations now are very low.
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Because I mean just taking your example as a leader, I don't know the ins and outs of what happened in New Zealand.
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I'm sure you delivered loads of things, so then we're going to talk about the crisis you managed.
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But certainly your legacy globally, the the the the role model in you was was your legacy and will be your legacy as a leader globally far more than delivery.
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But specifically in New Zealand, would you say the same thing or do you think actually what mattered most about your time as Prime Minister was the the tangible delivery?
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Yeah, I mean, so, you know, I will openly say that I felt we were a government that did a lot of stuff, you know.
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Uh and, you know, but we at the same time came in with a very big agenda.
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And one of the struggles was part of that agenda, for instance, climate change, child poverty and inequality, housing.
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These are all very significant issues that you're not going to shift the dial on in 3 or 5 years.
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We made inroads, for sure.
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Housing was particularly hard, and that's where I think, you know, his client's discussion about this is a an issue was really interesting.
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Uh because the government's got some levers, but not all of them, particularly if it's a failure in in um uh in your residential and uh housing market.
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Uh so, whilst we did a lot, are those the things that necessarily people would remember?
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Uh were they the things that they felt had the most immediate impact on their lives?
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Would be up to them to say, but I'd say that probably they remember other things about our time in office.
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As proud as I am about our legacy, I think they will remember other things.
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>> Well, zooming into your time in office, you dealt with some pretty serious crises, um the Christchurch massacre, where 51 Muslims were were killed by a white supremacist, and of course COVID.
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Don't Those are yeah, major major crises.
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How did you deal with them?
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How did you approach those crises? How did you stay calm?
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>> [snorts] >> You know, I think uh that and you know, with hindsight, and I was, you know, mulling over this a little bit um in the process of writing writing um my book.
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And if you're someone who talks about ideas like imposter syndrome, uh these are these are things that maybe that has a consistency, that that's kind of something that maybe might peak in the hard times, but actually I found the opposite to be true. Mhm.
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I found that during crisis, uh you are so singularly focused on the role that you need to play, on the decisions that need to be taken, on the importance of being there for for victims and others, that notions of a confidence gap or imposter syndrome just fade into the background.
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They become almost indulgent, you know.
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And so what I found was any crisis is that there's an immediacy there that really sometimes can bring out the the strengths that you might you you lock in and you and I'm someone that had a hesitancy to openly get into the weeds.
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And in a crisis, being across everything can aid your response.
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You always got to be measured about it, but it can actually aid your response.
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Your my instinct was always to be proximate to the crisis and that will give you insights into what's needed. >> Lead from the front. >> Lead from the front.
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And that sounds obvious, but I do think in this day and age there is particularly in crisis because they're unpredictable situations, you can often receive advice to to not have that proximity, to step back a bit, to give it time.
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What do you mean by proximity?
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I mean for example with the Christchurch massacre, So my instinct was to be there straight away.
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Unfortunately, it was such a, you know, unfolding situation that for security reasons they didn't and you also need to balance it with not getting in the way. >> Sure.
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So the earliest I could get down was the next day.
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But had I and it wasn't just about being in Christchurch, it was about being amongst those who had been affected.
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And by doing so, I knew on paper that of course burial rights were incredibly important.
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But being there, hearing, you know, hearing from uh people who in some case, you know, a twin brother.
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How do you explain to a twin brother that it's going to take time to identify uh through bureaucracy uh their loved one before they can be released.
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Being proximate to it gave us the extra understanding of why that needed all of our efforts um to release everyone as quickly as we could.
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Uh and so being proximate just gives you that extra that extra insight of what's needed on the ground. Sounds harrowing. Yeah, I I it it yeah.
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It would have been really >> some rituals or some some people or some beliefs that you fell back on to kind of give you the strength during that that time of challenge? Um certainly loved ones.
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Uh um I think probably if I think about mhm my background, I was raised in in a religious household but left that in my in my early 20s.
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What I think I left behind though was a a deep respect for other for other people's faith. Mhm.
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Um and I could see just, you know, the en- enormous courage that people were showing and and what was carrying them through and I I had some understanding of that.
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So, I I felt that playing out but in terms of uh my own well-being I I didn't pay too much attention to that for quite some time.
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I know it's hard to maybe extrapolate from such a specific situation, but what advice would you give to other leaders trying to stay calm in a crisis?
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I I for the most part found that um the trick is trying to just find the the sometimes blurry line between allowing yourself to be human whilst also remembering that people are relying on you to still do a job.
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And I think sometimes we lean as as leaders in the public eye, we lean pretty heavily into the second.
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We know we've got a job to do.
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To certain degree you've got to remain stoic for that.
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But I think we should still allow ourselves to be human.
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I think we live in an era where in a time where pretty easy to dehumanize people in politics for lots of reasons.
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Pretty easy to dehumanize one another full stop.
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But reminding people from time to time that you know you you are going to feel things deeply. That's We need that.
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We need that from our leaders because that's the kind of thing that motivates you to to change things.
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On COVID Jacinda, we're going through in the UK the big COVID inquiry and the conclusions seem to be basically the apparatus of state wasn't prepared but then the individual leaders just didn't grip it quickly enough.
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You famously gripped it very quickly, one of the quickest in the world.
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Rightly or wrongly you put in place, you know, a lockdown early which seemed to have benefited New Zealand greatly.
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Talk talk us through that that process and sort of how you realized okay this is incredibly serious. This is the real deal.
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This is the kind of the crisis that all leaders have to get through.
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How did you go through that?
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How did you realize it was important and then sort of what was the decision-making process to make that big call to lockdown early?
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Well, firstly I'd say I would never wish the management of a pandemic on anyone.
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>> [laughter] >> Doesn't seem like it was easy, yeah. No, not easy for anyone.
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You know, and and when you say, you know, talk about levels of preparedness, I mean I think every country found that they were ill-prepared for something of this scale. We had a influenza plan.
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But you know, soon realized of course that something like a pandemic, you know, you have to be so specific to the illness in front of you.
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How does it How does it you know is it is it is it you know what kind of form of transfer are you getting and what's the incubation period?
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All of that was material in trying to determine how you manage this illness.
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Uh and so the decision to lock down earlier, I remember uh that actually New Zealand had the benefit of watching the rest of the world and I cannot uh you know I cannot uh overstate how important that was.
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I mean we didn't get our first case until the 28th of February.
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So we was we were watching the US, the UK, we were watching Italy, we were watching China, we were seeing the way different countries were managing it.
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And one of the things that played out in my mind was uh well, if we choose to do something different and it fails we end up being no worse off than anyone else, but at least we will have tried.
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So there was a sense of the path of least regret.
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So that's the first thing I would say and that was quite determinative for me and probably a little bit born out from an earlier experience when I first came into office with the issue of um an illness affecting our nation's herd called Mycoplasma bovis and it posed huge one animal welfare issues for us this illness which came came in for was our first experience of it um within our borders.
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Uh and it was also going to hit you know the productivity of a really important sector to us.
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Uh and we were very uh you know we were one of very few nations that didn't have it.
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And when we looked around at countries that had recently had an experience of it coming in, we went and asked them what would you have done differently and I remember Ireland telling us that there's a chance you can get rid of it, get rid of it, right?
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And so again I remember that sense of the path of least regret. It's worth trying.
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And so, that was a bit of the mindset.
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Do you apply that framework other places in your life and leadership? Oh, often. >> Path of least regret. >> Regret is regret. Regret is regret.
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Regret is an awful emotion.
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Um regret is an awful emotion when, you know, when you have a sense of the different um possibilities that are sitting in front of in front of you. You know, that if only.
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I do differentiate, you know, cuz some people ask me, "Well, with hindsight with COVID, you know, what do you you know, what do you regret?"
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If it's something where at the time you don't know You made the best decision.
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>> and yeah, then I feel a little bit differently about that.
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But, you know, when we came to making that plan around let's try for a a lockdown and let's see if we can get our cases down to now.
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That was very much because they told us that unlike the initial mention for a flatten the curve, everyone was going to remember, everyone was going to control it. Yeah.
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We were going to have it in the country, but we were going to manage it in such a way that our hospitals would be okay.
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My mind shifted when someone put a graph in front of me that said, "There's no managing this. Once it goes, it goes."
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And that was being born out around the world. You could see it.
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And I thought, "Well, if you can't flatten the curve, you've got to try and crush it."
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Because otherwise, I was going to preside over people dying in a preventable situation.
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>> and minimize the collateral damage, which is what Sweden did.
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>> [snorts] >> Yeah, I mean, they took a very they did they did they did.
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They took a very different approach, but we had some differences in our population.
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You know, we had data which told us that our Pacific our Pacific and our Maori population would be more heavily hit.
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That, you know, uh some of the risk factors were more prevalent for some of our populations. And I felt a duty there.
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And keep in mind we're the gateway to the Pacific. People come through us. Mhm.
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And we have in our history influenza in 19 you know, in roughly 1918 went from New Zealand into Samoa and decimated their population.
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And did I want to preside over another another one of those situations? Weighty questions.
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We're going to end part one but ask you about something different.
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I just the future of government, the future of political leadership.
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How do we basically get better leaders and how do we avoid I guess this monopoly on on charisma that the strong men leaders that we've talked about earlier in episode seem to have at the moment.
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How do we get more sensible good leaders who have charisma and can compete with populists into leadership positions?
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Well, [snorts] first thing I'd say is they are there if we look. Okay.
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You know, I think one of the issues that we have is the incentives are all towards you know, there's a lot of amplification of those who are on the extremes.
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And in part because you know, that gets clicks.
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You know, we you know, we're drawn to those things that shock or inflame.
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And I don't think politics is a good place for shock and awe, but that's [clears throat] that's So, they are there if we look.
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And we need to you know, place greater priority and reward for those who are grafting to build consensus, don't oversimplify issues that are not simple.
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Um who holds you know, actually don't compromise on values that we need.
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I ran a fellowship on empathetic leadership and politics with people who are in politics.
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So, I know they are are there.
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So, look for them and expect it as well.
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Expect it from your leaders.
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And then some of the other asks I have of politicians themselves. Okay. What are What are they?
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Well, first of all, uh not to use the old tricks of politics.
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And look, I know this is an appeal that uh, will fall on deaf ears for some.
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Uh, but the politics of fear and blame are old, have been used for decades.
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Um, but we do have genuine issues that need to be solved.
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But blaming certain members of society and pointing the finger in other directions just is used as a tactic to take away the expectation that politicians will actually fix the problems itself.
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So, uh, I like to call out the use of fear and blame. Okay, fantastic. Okay, last question. Not an easy one.
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If you were to design domestic government from the ground up, if you were to design international politics from the ground up with a blank page to be optimal for the next 10 to 20 years, what would it look like?
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It would actually look a lot like the New Zealand system. It would. No system is perfect.
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But, um, the system that we have, which is called mixed member proportional, gives space for a whole diversity of views.
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It means that the parliament, um, with its both with its two votes, we vote for your local representative and then the party you want to leave in government, means we have small parties in there. We have larger parties.
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Uh, we have a diversity of population.
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Um, we also have dedicated seats for, uh, in indigenous New Zealanders as we well should.
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Uh, and so our parliament, you know, looks like the community it serves. Is it a perfect system?
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No, there are some tweaks I think probably need to be made to it.
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Um, but we also have select committees that have members of parliament from across parties who just work on the government's laws to make them better based on the feedback of New Zealanders.
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There are some really good elements.
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I think some of the struggle is not just though the way that our institutions are framed.
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Healthy democracies also rely on healthy debate, respectful debate, dialogue, consensus building.
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Disinformation disrupts that in really challenging ways.
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So, I think it's not just about the systems, but the environment our systems are operating in that we need to be thoughtful about. The platforms. The platforms, yeah.
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I I think And this is not a left or right issue. It's not.
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It's an issue of healthy democracy.
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If you believe in democracy, you should be worried about what's happening with this information.
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>> And what about international collaboration?
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On this issue, necessary.
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I mean, we we're in a, you know, when it comes to uh some of these issues, I would say, you know, the regulation of AI or um uh this issue, the online environment, it requires a an international approach.
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Justinda, thank you for sharing your approach to leadership.
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Next week, we're going to ask about the person behind the ideas, but thanks so much.