Mastering your leadership skills is a must in the public sector. Whether you are leading a small or a big team, knowing how to motivate your people and lead them towards achieving results will be the difference between wishful thinking and impactful actions. In this blog, I share three powerful leadership lessons from Jacinda Ardern.
New Zealandās Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, is, arguably,one of the most successful political leaders in managing the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide. In December 2020 she received the Gleitsman International Activist Award from the Institute of Politics and the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School for her leadership, decisive action, and commitment to reformative and inclusive policies that have served her country and the health of our planet. This blog was inspired by her acceptance speech. If you have 10 minutes, itās worth listening to (starts in minute 10), if not, these three lessons are a good start.
Be true to your values and defend them
The first question after the Prime Minister’s speech was how she became the leader she is now. She said that she continues to put a value on the traits she wants to instill in her daughters like kindness, thoughtfulness, and empathy. She questioned why we valued such characteristics in our youth but somehow differentiate the type of leaders we want to have in politics.
Jacinda Ardern believes her secret was her lack of ambition to be in a political position. Because of that, she never had to face the trade-off between her values and political survival. She decided to never compromise. This meant, that if being herself implied losing an election, so be it, but she wasnāt willing to lose herself in the process.
Not all of us will run for office or hold political positions. However, there will be moments when you will need to make choices. Choices that could compromise the essence of who you are. A decision between your values and, often, a short-term gain. Unless you are clear on what those values are, and how those show up in specific behaviors, it will be easy to get lost. From my experience, you canāt lead without clarity on who you are and what you stand for.
BrenĆ© Brown, author and research professor at the University of Houston, summarizes it well. āWe canāt live into values that we canāt name, AND living into values requires moving from lofty aspirations to specific, observable behaviorsā. This is one of the most important and honest exercises you need to have with yourself and even as a team within the organization. If you donāt know where to start, this step-by-step process from BrenĆ© Brown can help.
Be your own kind of leader
Prime Minister Ardern said she often receives invitations from schools, which she likes to attend whenever possible, and she loves to interact with the audience. She often asks this question: If you close your eyes and think of a politician, what do you see? What do they look like, whatās their age, their gender, their characteristics?
Often people say they imagine a man, someone older, with grayhair (I hate to admit it, but thatās the way I answered too -without the gray hair-, despite having been a politician myself). In terms of personality traits, people generally think of someone assertive, confident, and reassured. Someone that is seen as having an ego. Then she reflected, if those are the characteristics that we expect, is that creating bias? Could people without those personality traits see themselves as politicians?
You can, and in fact, you must, be your own kind of leader
Jacinda Ardern
Primer Minister Ardern emphasized that āyou do not need to have a personal ambition to be a leader. You can believe in consensus more than you believe in conflict. You can be human. You can feel and show emotions, and be empathetic and kind. You can, and in fact, you must, be your own kind of leaderā.
Stay close to the people you serve
When you have to deal with change and uncertainty, particularly in times of crisis, trust your intuition and stay close to the people you serve. Prime Minister Ardern mentioned that often in politics you have to act according to people’s expectations, which means you naturally question and ignore your instincts. In a world where data is within hand reach, you can find yourself making decisions based on what the data says people think, not what they actually think. Ardern illustrated this well with an example from the pandemic.
In a crisis, unlike in normal circumstances, you have to respond, fast. Often with not enough information. In early March 2020, she said that on her walks home from work she could hear conversations in the street and she could feel peopleās fear. She decided to trust her instinct and plan a strategy accordingly. The government was going to share everything they knew, create a plan to respond under specific circumstances so people would know what would happen, and bring people with them on that journey of uncertainty.
The Prime Minister acknowledged that keeping a real connection with citizens was one of the levers for her to respond successfully during the early stages of the pandemic. Only if you are close to your people, you can respond to what people feel and think. When making decisions always remember whatās the most important thing: the people, the people, the people, she said.
Find your own leadership journey
One of the characteristics I like about Jacinda Ardern is her authenticity. The truth is, you canāt pretend to be someone youāre not for long periods. My takeaway from her speech is that to be a successful leader you need to identify your values and act on them, be comfortable about becoming your own kind of leader and stay close to the people you serve.
