Former New Zealand Jaconda Ardern Prime Minister in the projection

These days, in its local cafeteria near Boston, Jacinda Ardern can be just another client. “I don’t put my name in order; it’s too complicated!” She laughed.

I asked him: “When you ask for coffee, do people start talking about politics with you?”

“No. Not at all,” Ardern replied. “In fact, the guy behind the counter told me: ‘Ah, you are really familiar. Oh, I know: Toni Collette!'”

That is a moment that would never happen in New Zealand, where Ardern became the youngest head of the world when he was only 37 years old. Now 44 years old, former Prime Minister Ardern has been living in the United States since he left office two years ago. She works as a member of Harvard University, and has written a new book, “a different type of power” (he will publish on June 3 by Crown).

From the title, she says: “I think, you know, there are different ways of leading. But I hope you also see that some of those features of characters that we may contribute it that we could believe are weaknesses: impostor syndrome or even empathy, they are actually incredible strengths.”

Ardern says that his story is about finding his voice in New Zealand, a small nation of about five million people. “Never, I never saw myself become Prime Minister, never,” he said.

In fact, his father told Ardern that he was too “thin -skinned” for politics.

Was he right? “I was right!” She laughed. “But I suppose that where I corrected it, your sensitivity is your empathy. And goodness, don’t we need a little more about that?”

In New Zealand, the answer was yes. Before the 2017 elections, Ardern suddenly became the leader of the leftist Labor Party of his country. Weeks after winning, she made an ad: She was pregnant. His trip, along with his then partner, now husband, Clarke, soon won his worldwide attention.

Did you feel comfortable with the symbolism of your role? Ardern said: “I realized the importance of this when I received a letter from someone on the way to work to tell their boss that they were having a baby, and that they felt nervous about the vision of their boss of whether I could do their job when I listened to that I was pregnant, and that gave him a level of confidence, you know, I felt that I also needed to show that I could do the job of work. and Be a mother. ”

But those joys of joy were followed by challenges. In 2019, massive shootings aimed at Muslims in Christchurch He left more than 50 dead, a crucible for New Zealand and a call to action for his leader: A ban on semi -automatic weapons.

I asked him: “Why do you think you and your colleagues in New Zealand could achieve the reform of arms control following a horrible mass shooting, but often here in the United States, such legislative changes have been difficult to obtain?”

“I can’t talk to the experience of the United States,” Ardern replied, “but if we really wanted to say: ‘We do not want this to happen again,’ we needed to demonstrate what we were doing to do that a reality.”

But even after she won another choice, things were not easy. As the pandemic advanced, the tensions exploded on the policies that are taken from his government. In 2023, when he surprised many deciding to give up, She wore her heart in her mangatelling Parliament: “You can be a nerd, a Cryer, a clamp, you can be all these things, and you can not only be here, you can lead, like me.”

Although he has left office, he has not stopped closely monitoring our turbulent ties. When asked what President Trump is doing and his decisions about trade and foreign policy, Ardern said: “You know, we are seeing that people experience a deep financial insecurity, and that must be addressed by political leaders. But I still support those ideas of isolation or protectionism or closing to remedy the issue actually No Long -term remedy and has a long -term negative impact for some of the collective problems that we must address as a global community. “

For now, Ardern is not inclined to return to politics, but he is being installed in his new normality, that is, “being just a normal family.”

And when you are asked for advice, in a Harvard classroom, or a world leader, Jacinda Ardern tells them that they are friendly: “That principle of goodness is something we teach to our children. Why should we not have a model of models that in the way we go in politics? To see more of that.”

For more information:

• “A different type of power: to Memoir” by Jaconda Ardern (Corona), in hardcover formats, ebook and audio, available on June 3 through Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Bookshop.org
• The RT. Excmo Dame Jacinda Ardern, Senior Fellow, Women and Public Policy Program, Harvard University

History produced by Sara Kugel. Editor: Joseph Frandino.

• Jaconda Ardern