Lessons in Leading Through Crisis From Jacinda Ardern

HBR IdeaCast

Harvard Business Review

Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Communication, Marketing, Business, Business/management, Management, Business/marketing, Business/entrepreneurship, Innovation, Hbr, Strategy, Economics, Finance, Teams, Harvard

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 10 June 2025

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As prime minister of New Zealand from 2017 to 2023, Jacinda Ardern managed one challenge after another: from natural disasters to a terrorist attack to the Covid-19 pandemic. To navigate that complexity, she had to learn how to gather experts and gain consensus on decisions even when information was scant or changing, to transparently communicate her plan of action, and to convey both calm and compassion, all while avoiding burnout. Ardern offers advice to business leaders grappling with geopolitical and economic uncertainty and disruption. She's the author of the book A Different Kind of Power.

Transcript

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0:27.4	I'm Alison Beard.
0:39.1	And I'm Adi Ignatious, and this is the HBR Ideacast.
0:48.9	Adi, imagine that you have just been appointed to a big leadership position and the people and businesses you're
0:54.8	responsible for are hit by a series of crises, disease outbreak, a terrorist attack, several natural disasters, and then COVID-19.
1:03.5	Do you think you would be able to navigate through all of that?
1:07.1	Definitely not. But I have to say it reminds me a little bit of the era we're in right now. The details are different, but we're in an era of perpetual crisis. And I think business and political leaders have to just accept that. There's no smooth sailing. It really is crisis management all the time.
1:24.1	And that's why we wanted to talk to Jacinda Ardern, the former Prime Minister of
1:27.7	New Zealand, who during her tenure from 2017 to 2023, managed her country through all of those
1:33.7	crises one after another. And we do think she has really important lessons for business leaders today
1:39.3	who are having to deal with so much geopolitical and economic uncertainty, you know, that volatile, complex,
1:46.3	ambiguous VUCO world that we don't love, but we have to deal with. Yeah, I want to hear what
1:51.7	she has to say. You know, we've just launched a new subscription offer called HBR Executive that really
1:58.0	is aimed at exactly everything we're talking about, which is, you know,
2:02.5	how to help leaders in this very, very, very difficult, very volatile, very crisis-filled time.
2:08.3	Yes, so she has lots to teach us about crisis management, how to make decisions when you don't
	...

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