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Jacinda Ardern turns her own imposter syndrome into self-help wisdom for young readers
If we do the maths, the target readership for this teen adaptation of Jacinda Ardern’s bestselling memoir A Different Kind of Power were at primary school when she was prime minister.
Those were the days when Ardern’s “stardust” – as her particular brand of political magic was described – saw her reach extraordinary heights of popularity, both at home and abroad.
But, as we know from the adult edition of her memoir, Ardern had always struggled with the self-confidence and self-belief we normally associate with effective leadership.
Review: What If You Could – Jacinda Ardern (Penguin)
Facing down this imposter syndrome informs the new book much more than the various events she had to contend with during her time in office. Dedicated to “the leaders of tomorrow – who just don’t know it yet”, it is more accessible and immediate, with much less political detail.
Ardern always wanted her original memoir to speak to her 14-year-old self, dedicating it to “the criers, worriers and huggers”. What If You Could expands on that, spinning her life experiences and challenges into a self-affirming guide to following dreams, being strong and ultimately creating a different kind of power.
No celebration of impossible standards
Deftly adapted by New York-based writer Ruby Shamir, the book spends no time dwelling on COVID. Ardern’s time working for Tony Blair in London is gone. Leaving the Mormon church is summarised in one sentence. But both books begin with pivotal bathroom moments.
In A Different Kind of Power, Ardern is in her friend’s toilet, taking a pregnancy test while waiting to learn if she can form a coalition and therefore become prime minister.
This time, she is in a high school bathroom stall before a debating competition, so nervous she’s cut her finger trying to open the jammed door. Cleverly, these different prefaces are united by the same passage:
My whole life I had grappled with the idea that I was never quite good enough. That at any moment I would be caught short, and that meant no matter what I was doing, I had no business doing it.
Instead, Ardern believed she was more suited to working behind the scenes. She wasn’t tough enough, was too “idealistic and sensitive” for the political front line.
And so the passages from the original memoir about her connection with Ernest Shackleton and the heroic age of Antarctic exploration are also gone. Despite her own achievements – one of New Zealand’s youngest ever prime ministers, a woman in a male-dominated world who gave birth while still in office – the book avoids any celebration of impossible standards.
Rather, she turns inward toward the psychological terrain, describing her feelings of being an imposter and the nagging fear of being exposed as a fraud.
Near the end of What If You Could, Ardern speaks directly to “everyone who doesn’t fit the old mould”. She encourages young people to channel the challenges of imposter syndrome into something positive:
In fact, all of the traits that you believe are your flaws will come to be your strengths. The things you thought would hold you back will in fact make you stronger, make you better. They will give you a different kind of power and make you a leader that this world, with all its turmoil, might just desperately need.
Corrective mantras to self-doubt
If there is a whiff of the self-help genre here, it is also a welcome change from the kind of inspirational literature commonly aimed at young readers throughout modern history – heroic tales of courage, bravery, physical prowess and intelligence.
Aimed at encouraging good citizenship, often their goal was as much to encourage conformity, service and, if necessary, sacrifice.
More recently, however, books for young adults have tended to focus on individual agency, engaging readers by directly asking “what would you do?” The subjects may still be on pedestals, but the message is that you can follow in their footsteps and change the world.
To that end, each of the 17 chapters of What if You Could has a key aspirational heading that sets out a challenge and guides the reader beyond their own self-imposed limits: what if you could be sensitive and show you care, what if it’s okay not to have all the answers, what if you could face your fears.
The absence of question marks in the book’s title and chapter headings is deliberate. Each serves as a corrective mantra to wash away self-doubt.
Ardern affirms the power of traditionally gendered qualities such as being sensitive and caring. And she grounds her own progressive politics in the language of answering calls for change and doing things differently.
Her most personal feelings are explored in chapters about facing your fears, choosing your own path and following your passion, all of which address imposter syndrome and insecurity.
The final chapter echoes a currently fashionable self-affirmation catchphrase, “I am enough”, reframed here as “what if doing your best is enough”.
Ardern then returns to those high-school years and recollections of how hard being young can be. But adult life can be difficult too, she says, so you need to “be kind to yourself”.
No doubt there will be those for whom such notions – “you are not weak, you are human […] you are enough, just as you are” – will be reminders of why they resisted Ardern’s politics in the first place.
But in this time of global conflict, political cynicism and mean-spiritedness, they also represent a graceful, positive sentiment that world leaders – current and future – could do worse than adopt.
Katie Pickles does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
