Review by Freya Bennett
A Different Kind of Power is, fittingly, a different kind of political memoir. I’ll admit I haven’t read many (political memoirs don’t tend to appeal to me, especially those by the usual cast of former leaders), but Jacinda Ardern’s memoir is a breath of fresh air, just as she was to politics and to women everywhere: one of the youngest, and one of the few women to lead a nation.
Ardern offers warm, candid insight into her personal life, sharing some of her hardest moments and how they shaped her into the leader she became. I love that there’s nothing self-congratulatory here, just honesty about the challenges she faced, and what she learned from them.
As a 38-year-old woman myself—just a year older than Ardern was when she became Prime Minister—reading this while battling a health flare and burnout from the “simple” act of being a full-time mum, I was in awe. The sheer volume of work, the crises she endured (a volcanic eruption, terrorism, a pandemic)—and the fact she came out of it even semi-intact—left me reeling. My nervous system felt rattled just reading it. I came away deeply grateful that I’m not a politician, or anyone with that kind of responsibility, on top of the demands of motherhood. But this insight made it crystal clear why she chose to step down when she did and why that was an act of courage rather than giving up.
Whatever your politics, and however you felt about her decisions, particularly around COVID, Ardern’s leadership mattered. We needed to see a leader who was kind, warm, empathetic. We needed to see that it’s possible for those in power to feel, to cry, to want to help. And while you might not like everything about our current leader here in Australia, or you may praise some decisions and condemn others, I feel we are leaning towards leaders with more empathy and kindness. A stark difference anyway from our previous leader. I hope we continue to see leaders who show emotion and empathy, and who genuinely want to help.
This is a political memoir for novices—Jacinda doesn’t expect you to know much about politics, and she writes for anyone interested in her story or inspired, in any way, by her leadership. It’s a book that helps you see someone’s humanity, reminds us that people in the public eye are human too, and calls on us to be kind, to be soft, and not to harden ourselves just because the world tells us we have to.
