Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@Oprah PRIME MINISTER is in theaters June 13, with special AMC preview screenings featuring a live Q&A with Rt. Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern on June 8. To Purchase A Different Kind of Power: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/744301/a-different-kind-of-power-by-jacinda-ardern/ The Right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern, former prime minister of New Zealand, joins The Oprah Podcast to discuss her new memoir, A Different Kind of Power which is available on June 3rd, 2025 . At age 37, Jacinda Ardern made history as the youngest female head of state in the entire world. Jacinda tells Oprah why, in an unprecedented moment for a world leader, she announced she would be using kindness as her guiding principle as prime minister of New Zealand. Jacinda Ardern also talks to Oprah about what it was like finding out she was pregnant on the eve of her election in 2017. Oprah asks the former prime minister about her international headline-making moments including taking her baby to the floor of the United Nations, leading New Zealand through the worst mass shooting in the country’s history and her quick yet widely criticized response to the COVID pandemic as well as her decision to resign. Jacinda Ardern also shares home video of personal and political moments of her time in office from the new documentary Prime Minister which premieres in theaters on June 13, 2025. Thank you to our presenting partner Lilly. Lilly’s Zepbound® (tirzepatide). Advertisement Disclaimer: Please see Indications and Safety Summary with Warnings for Zepbound® (tirzepatide) at zepbound.lilly.com/risk Follow Oprah Winfrey on Social: https://www.instagram.com/oprah/ https://www.facebook.com/oprahwinfrey/ Listen to the full podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/0tEVrfNp92a7lbjDe6GMLI https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-oprah-podcast/id1782960381 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is the main topic of this episode?
This episode of the Oprah Podcast is presented by Lilly. Well, hey there. Glad you're here with me on the Oprah Podcast. My guest today is the former Prime Minister of New Zealand, the Right Honourable Dame Jacinda Ardern. And when she was only 37 years old, she made history as the youngest female head of state in the entire world. That means on the planet Earth.
But what truly set her apart was her mission to lead with kindness.
If I could distill it down into one concept that we are pursuing in New Zealand, it is simple and it is this. Kindness.
Her first memoir is now available and it's called A Different Kind of Power. And I highly recommend it for anybody who's thinking about leadership in your own life or leadership. been through challenging times or just living and being able to live at the utmost best, even in the crises of your life.
It's a different kind of power and being able to tap into that power is what this book is all about. And also the new documentary, Prime Minister, which is so revelatory and really a thrill to watch.
How do we shine a light on the humanity that I know is still there and amongst everything else?
The documentary will be released exclusively in theaters on June 13th, just a week from now as we're speaking. Jacinda Ardern, welcome. Thank you. What a pleasure to be here. It is such an honor to have you here. Oh, the treat is all mine. Thank you. Well, I have to tell you, I had the... I don't even know what you call it, my first experience in New Zealand.
I was filming a movie called Wrinkle in Time and we shot it in New Zealand and I wanted to go just because it was being filmed in New Zealand. And I have never experienced a world like that. It's like you're driving along and you turn a corner and you're like... Oh my gosh. Everything is breathtaking.
It is. It is genuinely a breathtaking place. And with beautiful people too.
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Chapter 2: How did Jacinda Ardern make history as a world leader?
And they diligently, I saw them all thinking for a moment, writing it down. And then I said to them, now I want you to write down what you think you'll do. And you know, in a way, it was a trick question. I thought that they'd be confused by it. I thought they'd write the same thing twice. Nope, straight away, pens were picked up and they wrote down what they believed.
And I asked a handful of them, okay, tell me your dream job. And one girl said to me, I'd like to be a doctor. I said, that's wonderful. And what do you think you'll be without skipping a beat? Oh, I'll be probably a travel agent. You know, these two vastly different occupations. And I asked her, why do you think that you'll be a travel agent?
She said, I just think someone else will be better at being a doctor than I will be. And here we are. I mean, this young woman, what is it in her life at that early stage had given her that mindset that it was there. And so I... I do think there are more people than we know.
Well, I do think that there are more, but I also think that you don't become what you want or what you desire. You actually become what you believe. So you lean into the thing that you most believe which if it is being a travel agent, that's what you end up pursuing and not the thing that you would aspire to because you're going to lean to the thing that you most believe is possible.
And perhaps this is one of the reasons why I feel so motivated to talk about and to articulate and to say out loud the thing that I think some people just don't, which is... Yeah, I've had a confidence gap my whole life. Still do. It's not something I think you can magically disappear or press away.
I'm bringing it up because you bring it up in the book, obviously. And I'm also bringing it up because I have been such an admirer of yours across the sea all this time. And I just stood in awe of your leadership today.
Now I know what was going on behind the scenes, but I just stood in awe of your ability to stand in such grace and such power that seemed to be coming from not out here, not from what everybody expected or wanted you to say, but there was an inner strength and an inner knowingness that came from a sense of wisdom I saw in you. So then when I read that all this time you were suffering, I'm like...
How could that be true? So when you became prime minister in 2017, you said that you planned on using kindness as your guiding principle.
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Chapter 3: What does 'kindness' mean in leadership?
In the face of isolationism, protectionism, racism, the simple concept of looking outwardly and beyond ourselves, of kindness and collectivism, might just be as good a starting point as any.
You say kindness has a power. What do you think that power is? And a strength that almost nothing else on this planet has.
Well, you mentioned earlier my father, you know, and actually both my parents were incredible role models. And in the process of writing about childhood, one of the things that came through to me clearly, which I already knew to be true, was how influential their example was to me. My father was a policeman for 40 years before retiring.
And there were so many times when I saw him policing in the community, but we lived in a very small town for a time. And so I got to see close up him at work. And he always had, I think, that approach to policing, that he was a member of a community first and foremost. And if he was going to police successfully, he needed to build trust.
And to build trust, he needed to try and bring dignity to the work that he did. I remember one day, I was only little, I probably would have been maybe six or seven. And to get into, to walk into the little township, which I'd do every so often to go and get a bag of lollies or something, I would cut through the car park of the police station.
And I remember coming through one day and seeing my dad surrounded by what in reflection I know were gang members. And I knew enough to know that it looked like a pretty bad situation. And my dad clocked me and he told me to just keep walking. And so off I went, but then worrying the entire time about how my dad got out of that situation.
That night I asked him about it, thinking that because he was so outnumbered that he must have had to have used force in some way. And he looked so disappointed at my assumption. And I remember him saying to me, the greatest tool that I have will always be my words.
And so he was someone who modeled, role modeled, I think, to me, as did my mother, the importance of communication, the importance of empathy, the importance of kindness, even in such a difficult job like policing. And so I think that was probably some of the earliest examples for me of how there can be a strength and a power to kindness and empathy, which we often forget in leadership.
I am so glad you're here for this very special episode of the Oprah Podcast with former Prime Minister of New Zealand, Dame Jacinda Ardern. Coming up, I ask her to take us back to the moment she found out she won her historic election at just 37 years old, becoming the youngest female head of state in the world. It was also the same moment she found out she was pregnant.
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