A Different Kind of Power: A Memoir

How Ardern’s early years shaped her mental schemas and personality

Jacinda Ardern has launched her memoir with an explosion of media appearances (interviewed by Oprah, Hilary Barry, and on the excellent The Rest is Politics podcast) and with a wave of reviews. Thank you for checking out this one.

This review emphasises Jacinda Ardern’s early years – early exposure to social deprivation in the depressed timber town of Murupara, exploring the power of words as a high school debater and the importance of social connection as a campaign volunteer.

In a later piece I will explore Ardern’s effort to promote the value of empathy. It might come as a surprise to you, but this view is quite contentious at present.

I look at her early experiences through different viewpoints. First the Big Five dimensions of personality. Then, in terms of the mental schemas she developed in these formative years. I end with a brief look at her talents and values.

When making judgements about people from a distance, forming opinions about their mental schemas is possibly more valid than assessing personality. What someone writes about – especially someone who is intent on sharing her personal as well as political development, as Ardern is – means describing early, formative experiences. If we assume that what she writes has emotional resonance for her (as well as her readers), we can learn what schemas shape her view of the world, her feelings about that, and her understanding of what to do.

Putting together a view of her personality, we are missing how Ardern came across to others in those years, except through her reaction to that. We can infer from her wide range of social connections and roles that she was reasonably assertive. But what we notice more, because she describes it more, is her internal world – especially her worries and how she manages them.

Ardern can be described as “warm” – a combination of agreeableness and extraversion. Particularly notable is her compassion (an aspect of agreeableness). She evokes this in a memory of a small boy, all alone, crying on the other side of a cold street in Murupara. A more complicated feeling for people emerges when she finds that her revered Nana had an extramarital affair.

Extraversion is a mix of enthusiasm and assertiveness. Her assertiveness is indicated in her supporting her elder sister at primary school (“Louise was shyer than I was”) and her confidence in arguing with adults on political topics, then doing well as a high school debater.

The girl and young woman that Ardern describes is not especially bold – the enthusiastic aspect of extraversion. She describes hanging back when on door-knocking duty with fellow-Mormon missionaries. The phone canvasser and door-knocker of her early political volunteering is more the result of strong motivation and effort.

We learn about Ardern the “anxious performer”. When an inspirational high school teacher describes his own “imposter syndrome”, Ardern gets it. She “imagines each worst-case scenario”. As a girl she often has a sore stomach, as a public speaker in high school she can’t eat before speaking.

Like many others, Ardern uses her worries to motivate her to resolve risks. She memorises her speeches, rehearsing at night when she can’t sleep. She “pays attention to everything”. When she begins as a parliamentary intern, she studies the 600-plus page parliamentary guide. These anxiety-motivated efforts reinforce her diligence. When she and her sister are delivering supermarket flyers, she delivers to every letter box, even those with scary dogs. When her mother inducts her into wrapping fish and chips by demonstrating with a half-cabbage, Ardern keeps practising until and past when she’s got the technique down.

This drive to perform is what sustains her warm and assertive social persona.

What are the mental schemas that emerge from Ardern’s description of her early years? I consider her in terms of 9 “early maladaptive” schemas and 9 “positive” schemas that schema coach Iain McCormickdescribes as more common among high-performing adults.

Like many such high-performers, Ardern tops out on “unrealistic striving” – “making every effort to meet high-performance standards, often at my own cost.” Both of her parents worked hard at often difficult jobs. Her father moved to Murupara to build up his leadership experience and boost his chances of promotion to Police Sergeant, a period that her mother found difficult. Related, but distinct, is “self-sacrifice” – “focusing on the needs of others”. She felt that her parents needed help when they took on running an orchard on top of their day jobs. In another context, she describes the young Jacinda as “desperate to help”.

Again, like many capable adults Ardern rates higher on positive than negative schemas. Not surprisingly she is high on “healthy self-control” – “discipline to complete boring tasks”. She had strong role models in the efforts of her mother and father. Her Dad walked four hours into the bush to apprehend an offender who was attempting to avoid arrest. Her mother worked a range of mundane jobs, contributed to the church and was relentlessly busy.

Ardern also demonstrates “emotional fulfilment” – with moving examples of the caring she received from her parents and her Nana; “empathic consideration” – her ability to read people emerges as she sees the difficulties her mother and other friends experience; “social belonging” – the younger Ardern had friends and was a part of the social scene in her church, at school and university and as she worked her way into party politics.

Ardern is empathetic, with a strong drive to collaborate with people she trusts and to meet high standards.

What can we make of the talents she developed? Ardern kept a journal, made speeches and became a debater. An example of the power of communication was seeing her father outside the police station surrounded by a threatening mob of gang members. When she quizzed him later, he explained that he had relied on “my words”. In contrast to her facility with language, she never learned to read music, and saw her sister as the scientist who was better at maths and STEM subjects. This may have contributed later, along with her empathy for others, to her willingness to listen to expert opinion.

Ardern’s values took shape after her hard work on the campaign of Harry Duynhoven – who was part of the Helen Clark led Labour victory of 1999. She believes that there are “wrongs that must be fixed” and that all people have the potential to participate and contribute. She sees the leadership roles of Jenny Shipley and Helen Clark as guidelines to the possibility that a woman can aspire to political leadership.

I look forward to sharing her views on the value of empathetic leadership.