New Zealand’s Prime Minister “Most Effective Leader on the Planet”?

The Atlantic just published a story about New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Arden that ponders whether she is “the most effective leader on the planet.” Well, if she is, a good deal of that effectiveness can be attributed to one thing: she works with the human condition.

When we wrote Disrupted: Strategy for Exponential Change back in 2015, we described the principles of our framework for agile strategy, SiA. SiA — Strategy in Action, that is — is a way of being, an ingrained culture, rather than a mere methodology. And the only way to truly practice it is to work with the human condition.

What do we mean by that? Let’s return to the example of Jacinda Arden, because she seems to get it.

Arden leads a country that is starting to move towards the big “re-opening” that we all anxiously await. COVID-19 numbers are indicating that New Zealand’s strict social distancing rules can safely soften. The country has managed the pandemic without overwhelming its health care system.

Of course, there are innumerable factors that make each country’s pandemic experience unique, and not all of them are related to political leadership. But in New Zealand’s case, its Prime Minister has played a positive role that’s difficult to discount.