There was no false bombast or mock outrage. There was nothing distracting from the message he was imparting. There was no artifice. He was simply himself. That bodes well for communicating with the average punter who wants to know what Labour stands for bar more taxes.
Labour might not be able to clone John Key and instil its values in such a double. But in Little, the party has the closest thing to the original it is likely to get.
Labour's other three leaders in the post-Helen Clark era - Phil Goff, David Shearer and David Cunliffe - all struggled to overcome handicaps which ultimately translated into death-knock poll results.
Goff carried too much baggage. Cunliffe could not convince people that a product of the Harvard Business School could be genuine in championing the poor and disadvantaged.
People liked Shearer. But he never really brushed off the charge that he was too inexperienced to run the major Opposition party. It is noteworthy that no one has labelled Little as similarly inexperienced, at least parliamentary wise.
The immediate reaction to his victory focused instead on the desperately narrow margin of his win and the low number of his parliamentary colleagues who backed him.
It was assumed this was further evidence of Labour's splits and divisions and that it spells trouble for Little.
That is highly unlikely. By now, there will be more MPs claiming to have voted for him than was actually the case. But that is politics. The winner takes all and then returns the proceeds by way of jobs and other patronage.
With a reshuffle pending, no one wants to be offside with the leader.
However, Labour's biggest headache is its shocking public image. The party has stretched public patience well beyond breaking point.
Only time and tighter caucus discipline can deal with that problem. And Little has read the Riot Act on that score.
The party's public image is one of three major issues confronting Little.
The second is his trade union background - something for which he will make no apology but which is a turn-off for some middle-ground voters out of principle. Another turn-off is the question of how much Little is in hock to Labour's Maori wing for handing him its second preferences which applied after Nanaia Mahuta was eliminated in the first round of the leadership vote count.
But the real biggie is where he seeks to place Labour on the political spectrum and the degree of any change in direction.
Another change in the name-plate on the revolving door of the Labour leader's office will not see the more than 330,000 voters who deserted Labour in the three elections since its high-tide result in 2005 suddenly crying "Hallelujah" and wishing to recant for their switching allegiances to National.
Voting trends can be like tectonic forces. Things happen slowly. But the eventual impact can be massive. The thing which should worry Little the most is that Labour's share of the vote has been in decline for close on a decade.
Moreover, it is a problem plaguing many like-minded social democratic parties around the world. That suggests that Labour's decline is less a function of a string of gaffes and blunders coupled with infighting and disunity. It may be that Sir Roger Douglas gets the last laugh in that the free market reforms he initiated in the 1980s under Labour's banner have brought huge societal changes which are squeezing Labour harder than other parties.
All the talk of Labour "reconnecting" with voters may be a mirage. It is quite possible that for a fair chunk of those 330,000 voters, Labour no longer has any relevance in their lives. There is nothing with which to connect. Traditional Labour thinking might still sit comfortably with unionised fitters and turners in a heavy engineering plant in Otahuhu. But what sort of message do you prepare for the dozens of software developers working in an expanding business like Xero?
As a long-time observer of changes in the job market, work patterns and the rise and fall of occupations, Little is acutely aware of all this.
Somehow, Little has to modernise the party's thinking. Labour loves to fight old battles. It needs to identify the future ones - and then position itself ahead of the play so it can squeeze National out - much in the way Key gets in first and ensures National is sitting right where the most voters are.
Little may not have given much away about his plans for revamping the party and its policies. But he has repeatedly made one point of critical importance, which has been largely ignored.
Little insists Labour's policies must address "New Zealanders' priorities". In other words, not what Labour thinks ought to be New Zealanders' priorities.
He also says those policies must be explained properly and understood by voters - a dig at the previous leadership for failing to clear up confusion about the party's capital gains tax policy and its intention to raise the age of eligibility for national super to 67.
The talk of "New Zealanders' priorities" echoes Key's election campaign chatter about "focusing on the things that matter".
Is Little flagging a shift of Labour to the political centre? Or will Little try to move the centre leftwards as Clark succeeded in doing, but which Cunliffe tried and failed to do?
Whatever, National will be making a huge mistake if it fails to take Little seriously.
