Leadership and Humor: How to Lead With Humor

Описание: Leadership and humor. How to lead with humor is one of the most important skills sets a leader can develop. Leading with humor helps leaders connect with employees, build trust, create psychological safety at work, improve collaboration, improve communication, morale and motivation. It's not about being a stand up comedian, leading with laughter is about connecting at a human level so that your employees want to follow you, not because they have to!


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A Bell Leadership study found that the two characteristics that employees most wanted to see from their leaders was a strong work ethic and a healthy sense of humor. Similarly, studies in the military have shown that leaders who display a healthy sense of humor tend to be trusted more, admired more, and respected more.
All sorts of organizations are reaping huge benefits by leveraging their humor resources. As I write about it in my book The Humor Advantage, organizations are discovering that when they strategically, purposely put humor to work in their culture, employees tend to be happier and more motivated. There's less stress, lower levels of absenteeism rates and employee turnover rates, higher productivity, in some cases higher sales. They tend to be more creative and innovative, and they create the kind of culture that is more conducive to open and honest communication.
At an individual level, all sorts of studies support the notion that leaders who lead with laughter, who share their sense of humor do tend to be trusted more. There's a huge correlation between humor and trust, because when we share our sense of humor, I think it reveals our authentic, real selves, and that's critical if you want to build trust in your relationships at work.
Let me be clear. I am not, when I talk about leading with laughter, I am not talking about being the office clown, being a standup comedian, telling jokes, being funny, or being an extrovert, even. It's about just a sense of balance, a sense of perspective, a sense of humanity. It's about laughing at yourself and those things you have no control over. Is it not a truism that the more seriously a person takes themselves, the less seriously the rest of the people tend to take that person? It's about just lightening up on ourselves.
It's certainly not about being an extrovert. I travel all over the world researching, writing, and speaking about inspiring leadership and inspiring workplaces. I've interviewed leaders in organizations that do embrace humor as a core value in their culture. Very often, these leaders are introverts. In some cases they're even shy, yet they have still recognized the need, the importance, of building a culture that values fun, and humor, and passion.
Here are a few simple things any leader can do to put humor to work effectively on their leadership team. Number one, start by just laughing at yourself more. When you laugh at yourself you take away anybody's ability, I think, to laugh at you because you beat them to the punchline. Not in a put-down kind of way, but laughing at your own mistakes, laughing at your own bloopers and admitting them is one of the fastest ways of building trust and building relationships on any team and in any workplace.
Number two, share early stories of your failures, of your bloopers. This is a great thing, I think, for any leader to do. It shows that you're human. It shows that you have progressed in your career, and you've learned from your earlier mistakes, and that you're willing to talk about them and admit them. This will do wonders for employee morale and help you connect with your team.