When an Australian gunman shot dead 51 worshippers at two mosques in Christchurch,Ardern wore a black hijab as a mark of respect while meeting with members of the city’s Muslim community. She took swift action to toughen the nation’s gun laws,including by banning military-style semi-automatic weapons,andled a global charge for social media companies to pull down extremist content. “She was calm,she was compassionate,she was dignified,” Shaw says.

Ardern took a hard-line response to the arrival of COVID,closing the country’s borders and shutting down the economy. In the first year of the pandemic,New Zealand went 102 days without any community transmission and recorded one of the world’s lowest death rates. As with Australian state premiers who pursued similar “COVID zero” policies,Kiwi voters rewarded Ardern with a landslide victory in the 2020 election.

The reality of Ardern’s prime ministership was more flawed than the international hype suggested. A plan to create more affordable housing,called KiwiBuild,was scrapped after two years because it wasn’t building homes fast enough.Ardern’s poll numbers crashed over the past year as COVID death numbers soared,inflation spiked and concerns about crime increased. Rather than face a potential election defeat this year,she’s called it quits.

The legacy of her leadership style,however,will live on. Ardern showed that encouraging empathy could be as politically powerful as stoking division,in the process lifting New Zealand’s status on the world stage to unprecedented heights.

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