How Jacinda Ardern Took Down a Reporter’s Sexist Question and Showed Us Three Ways to Outsmart Implicit Bias

Issue 213— December 5, 2022

You really must watch this video to get your hackles up at the hapless reporter who asked New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern if she was meeting Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin because they are “similar in age.”

The full quoted question that seemed to imply two women couldn’t possibly be meeting to discuss serious matters is: “A lot of people will be wondering: ‘are you two meeting just because you’re similar in age and have got a lot of common stuff there — when you got into politics and stuff — or can Kiwis actually expect to see more deals between our two countries down the line…?’”

Your chuckles will have a day at the masterful way Ardern responds, and then Marin seconds her comments without so much as an eye roll. They are calm and steady in their remarks. But you know they are simultaneously annoyed and laughing within.

Yet this small scenario, experienced by almost every woman and person of color at some point in their professional life, is quite a serious matter with serious repercussions.

Such exchanges are demeaning, often deliberately so. They rob the recipient of mind space needed to get the work done, to stay strategic and forward thinking rather than defensive. When repeated over time, they literally cause groups not in power to value themselves less than they value others.

Despite the fact that research over a period of years by Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman, published in the Harvard Business Review and elsewhere, finds that women score higher than men in most leadership skills, other research finds that women have been socialized to value themselves less and others more. For example, several studies found that women ask anywhere from 3% to 32% less compensation than men for the same positions.

Research from Harvard Business Review found that women scored higher than men on 17 of 19 of leadership capabilities.

The question asked of Ardern and Sanna gives us a familiar glimpse at the implicit bias that still taints the system despite so many advances we have worked for in gender equity. Fortunately, their handling of the case gives us examples of how to not just overcome the bias but also how to disrupt the system entirely and put a new, more inclusive one in its place.

It isn’t easy but perhaps it’s not as complicated as we have been led to believe. Here are three ways Ardern has turned implicit bias on its head and made it her superpower.

1. Get clarity about your most deeply-held values and test everything you do back to them. Ardern is an archetype for my Leadership Intentioning Tool #1, which is “Uncover yourself.” Great leaders know themselves and show themselves. They “wear the shirt” of their convictions, to reference Leadership Power Tool #6 in my previous book, No Excuses: 9 Ways Women Dan Change How We Think About Power. Authenticity is seamless and effortless because there is no striving to be what they are not. Their words and work are aligned with their deepest values.

(You can find all of the 9 Leadership Intentioning Tools and a free Intentioning mini-workbook on my website, where you can also learn more about No Excuses which is the basis for the 9 Leadership Power Tools to Advance Your Career online course.)

Winners of No Excuses and Intentioning, when they attended the Take The Lead & Lady of Record Power Shift workshop at Diane Von Furstenberg’s flagship store.

2. Directly name the problem or transgression, modeling strength and civility. Ardern’s first response addressed the bias head on and explicitly: “My first question [to the reporter] is I wonder whether or not anyone every asked [former U.S. President] Barack Obama and [former New Zealand Prime Minister] John Key if they met because they were of a similar age.” While she never lost the pleasant look on her face, her delivery had the intentioning of a woman who embraces her power, or maybe a mom who can see right through her child’s attempt to pull the wool over her eyes. (No New Zealand sheep pun intended.)

3. Follow it up with calm exposition of facts. Ardern and later Sanna simply shared the business reasons of why they were meeting, to expand trade between the two countries. They gave specific examples of imports and exports that they are working to amplify. After you let the offending person know you will take no s — -t, you can get ten steps farther by engaging them in rational conversation backed up by metrics and other facts of the matter. This is where you bring that other person into the story, your story as you wish to define it. You aren’t pushing them away. After all, while righteous indignation might feel good in the moment, rancor doesn’t get you very far in life. It’s much smarter to keep a cool head while not buying into a false concept; you’ll be framing and teaching based on your terms.

So the next time you are in a situation that puts you into that uncomfortable space where implicit bias is demeaning to you and might even present a barrier to achieving your leadership aspirations, rewatch the video of Ardern dismantling blatant sexism with clarity of values, courage to name the transgression directly, and calm exposition of facts.

(Thanks for reading. Please drop a comment into the chat and let me know if you have had a similar experience and what you did about it. Others might benefit from your tips.)

GLORIA FELDT is the Cofounder and President of Take The Lead, a motivational speaker and expert women’s leadership developer for companies that want to build gender balance, and a bestselling author of five books, most recently Intentioning: Sex, Power, Pandemics, and How Women Will Take The Lead for (Everyone’s) Good. Honored as Forbes 50 Over 50 2022, and Former President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, she is a frequent media commentator. Learn more at www.gloriafeldt.com and www.taketheleadwomen.com. Tweet Gloria Feldt.