Jacinda Ardern, Theresa May: Leadership styles from different planets

Jacinda Ardern, prime minister of New Zealand, and Theresa May, prime minister of the United Kingdom, are of different generations and different politics. They are leaders on alternative sides of the globe each facing a national crisis but, in terms of leadership style, these two women are on different planets.

When she first heard word of the appalling massacre at mosques in Christchurch, Ardern clearly took a deep breath and immediately adopted a tone and stance designed to confront the atrocity and its implications for her country straight on. She was determined it would not have the effect desired by the perpetrator of dividing the people of New Zealand. She made and communicated a series of important decisions which set the tone for the national and indeed international response.

Ardern immediately characterised it as a terrorist attack in contrast with some leaders who have shown reluctance to do so when white shooters are involved. She stood with the victims and their families as being of New Zealand irrespective of their immigration or citizenship status. She focused on a national message of empathy and support for those affected. She visited the relatives of those killed and injured the next morning.

Wore a black scarf

When doing so she wore a black scarf in a clear statement of visual empathy with their culture. She literally and figuratively embraced them. She promised immediate state funding to those bereaved and injured and ordered the expediting of visa applications for family members from abroad wishing to travel to help bury their dead.

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Ardern did not equivocate on the implications of the atrocity for New Zealand’s guns laws. She announced that significant changes to those laws would be announced within a week. They were published yesterday and the amending legislation will be enacted before the middle of April.

When first speaking about the atrocity in New Zealand’s parliament she opened with words of peace in Arabic. She has made a point of not naming the perpetrator and asking others to deny him the oxygen of publicity, which he hoped his slaughter of Muslims would achieve.

Ardern’s tenure as prime minister has been far from perfect but her leadership this week in the face of an horrific and unpredictable crisis has been striking in its clarity, its compassion and its inclusiveness.

Disastrous leadership

The New Zealand premier’s approach contrasts sharply with the disastrous leadership which May has provided to her country in recent months.

Her approach has been entirely lacking in clarity. Negotiating a Brexit withdrawal agreement with the European Union, on the face of it, a considerable achievement, but it amounts to little in circumstances where that agreement has twice being overwhelmingly rejected by parliament.

It is worth remembering that the first of these rejections came months after she had laid the deal before parliament only to postpone the vote at the last minute. When the vote did take place in January it was defeated by 203 votes. When she put it to parliament again on March 12th it was still rejected by 149 votes. She is now scheduled to put it again early next week in the hope that, in the face of a European Union offer to grant a short extension only if the withdrawal agreement is approved, dozens of MPs who voted against that deal twice will suddenly switch to supporting it.

While Ardern’s stance has embraced all political strands, May’s has been far from inclusive. She has been closed to all alternative views or approaches to resolving Brexit, notwithstanding the fact that the referendum passed by the narrowest of margins and that she heads a minority government. She has at no stage engaged meaningfully with the other parties on the issue but instead has put all her effort into pandering to and seeking to turn around the Democratic Unionist Party and the hard-line Brexiteer European Research Group within her own party.

Ardern’s speech in parliament on Tuesday was perfectly pitched to embrace those affected and to calm a traumatised nation. In contrast May’s performance in the House of Commons on Wednesday was bitter and negative. At times she was visibly angry at the dispatch box and directed that anger at parliament itself. Later that night she delivered an address to the nation from Downing Street, which was in reality no more than another dressing down of parliament. The negative tone of her speech was clearly shaped by polling which shows that voters, even leave voters, want an end to political bickering over Brexit. The content and tenor of her remarks however did nothing to persuade MPs opposed to her deal to vote for it next week.

There is a question that has kept academics from multiple disciplines busy for many years: are leaders born or made? Whatever the answer, we all recognise strong leadership when we see it. Right now the world needs more of what we witnessed in the southern hemisphere this week.