鈥淢ANY PEOPLE ARE CYNICAL about politics, and I can see why,鈥 Jacinda Ardern, the former prime minister of New Zealand, told a packed John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum last November. 鈥淚 was in politics for 15 years and I came out with a strong belief that politics is a place for positive change.鈥 Ardern, the 2023 Angelopoulos Global Public Leaders Fellow and a Hauser Leader in the School鈥檚 Center for Public Leadership, was at Harvard for the fall semester after six years helming New Zealand鈥檚 government. Ardern was the youngest female head of government in the world when she was elected in 2017. She gained international recognition for her leadership following the Christchurch Mosque shootings in March 2019鈥攕he gained broad political support for legislation to ban semi-automatic weapons in just 10 days. 鈥淪ome things we just carry with us for life,鈥 Ardern said, speaking of the shootings by a white supremacist, which left 51 dead. 鈥淚t was something that fundamentally changed who we were as a nation and also how we see ourselves.鈥 Ardern also gained plaudits for her handling of the COVID pandemic in New Zealand, which took a disproportionate toll on the country鈥檚 Maori population. But it was her last message of the evening that was perhaps most inspiring. 鈥淚 have been very open about the fact that I suffer from imposter syndrome, otherwise called a confidence gap,鈥 she explained. 鈥淧eople ask me, 鈥楬ow did you overcome that?鈥 Well, I never did. And yet I was prime minister for five years in spite of that. 鈥 What I would say to you is that you never know what you are capable of until you are doing it.鈥
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鈥淕overnment is always a trailing indicator, not a leading indicator. The reason Washington looks like it does is [because] the country looks like it does.鈥
鈥淲e are the epilogue of that story. We were held down for generations, but now we are a reformed nation exercising our sovereignty.鈥
鈥淭he only thing that candidates fear is a challenge from the right or the left, the most extreme voices in each party.鈥
鈥淚t was perceived as bold [declaring racism a public health threat]. I鈥檓 really proud to say that over 200 departments of public health have followed suit since that time.鈥
鈥淚t is not part of our national story or the founders鈥 vision that people can鈥檛 sit on their porches in neighborhoods all over this country without being afraid of being shot.鈥
鈥淓xplanation is not justification. If we don鈥檛 explain, then we are doomed.鈥
Banner photograph by Martha Stewart; Headshots by Martha Stewart