At 37 years old, Jacinda Ardern was the world's youngest female head of government when she became prime minister of New Zealand.

She was also just the second in history to give birth while in office.

And she led her nation of five million through multiple crises, including a devastating mass shooting and the COVID pandemic before resigning in 2023. Her historic journey

is the focus of a new documentary called Prime Minister set to premiere next week. And I spoke with

her recently about her time in office and her new memoir, a different kind of power.

Prime Minister Arden, welcome to the News Hour. Thank you for being here. Thank you for having me.

So in the book, in the very first page, you dedicate it to the criers, the warriors, and the huggers, which just hit me right in the heart.

But the words that you use to describe power are not words we usually hear from heads of state. You talk about empathy and kindness.

You write about

preparing to become prime minister and wanting to bring kindness back. How and why did those become

your guiding principles? Yeah, in part because I think those are all of the things that took me

into politics in the first place. And I think unfortunately over time, and this is something that I notice is a bit of a

universal thing. We've built up an expectation about the way that politicians need to behave

in order to survive the political environment. But I don't believe that necessarily means that that

is what people are expecting of us.

That idea that you have to be devoid of kindness because that would equate to weakness,

or the idea that it's a compassion-free zone.

I actually do think voters seek that, and hopefully my time of politics demonstrated

that you can lead in that way and you can successfully

lead in that way.

You write in the book about very suddenly, somewhat unexpectedly, being thrust into leadership,

and you write very honestly about, I think what's fair to call the imposter syndrome of it all.

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