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How to lead with humour - one size doesn’t fit all
Why are some leaders loved while others are loathed? What made Tony Blair popular and Gordon Brown a ballot-box turn off? Why did Boris succeed where May floundered? Policy, strategy, and ideas can take a person so far, but to be a successful leader, you need personality and the ability to connect with those you aspire to lead. One of the most effective ways to do this is through humour.
Myriad studies bear this out. Research in business management, leadership and organisational psychology shows that humour has a positive influence on a range of factors within organisations including group cohesion, team performance, resilience and coping, community responsibility and leadership effectiveness.
Humour needs to be handled with care
It appears that not only does a GSOH get you a long way on Tinder, or Grindr, it also helps you in leadership, where it’s seen as one of the most desirable qualities. Leaders that have a sense of humour are seen as calm, supportive, and motivational. Which is great news if you’re funny, but not so great if you aren’t (and even worse for those who think they’re funny when they’re not).
Humour is subjective, so sometimes what makes you laugh might not make other people laugh. It might make them cringe. Or worse, it might cause offence. So, while humour is an effective weapon in a leader’s armoury, it needs to be handled with care.
Humour can be learned
The good news is that humour as a leadership skill can be learned. Even if you are the dourest fun-sponge, you can become funny. We’re experts at this at Laughology and have worked with some of the dullest humans on Earth, polishing them up to become sparkling diamonds of wit and personality.
It’s worth the effort to train yourself in the art of humour, as incorporating it into your leadership style isn’t only about making yourself popular. Humour is also a valuable tool for delivering information. As we say at Laughology, when the mouth is open in laughter, it’s easier to pop a bit of information in the brain.
Five rules for introducing humour into leadership
To get you started, here are the top five rules for introducing humour into leadership.
Rule 1: Don’t try to be funny
Forced humour fails miserably. If you aren’t a natural wit and raconteur, the best way to introduce humour that works is to tell stories about funny real-life situations. Anecdotal humour is more natural. Let the content provide the humour, rather than trying to squeeze humour into the content.
Rule 2: Timing is everything
If you’re making a speech or presentation, the beginning and end are the most impactful points. It’s here where attention needs to be grabbed, and where you should aim to inject a bit of humour.
Rule 3: Know your audience
Cater your humour and your humorous stories to the audience demographic. What does your audience know and relate to? If you’re a leader addressing your employees, your hilarious anecdote about your yacht holiday in Sardinia might not resonate, so perhaps it’s best saved for the Board.
Rule 4: Be appropriate and don’t be offensive
Don’t use content that could even remotely be construed as racist, sexist or derogatory. Humour that victimises is never right. Steer well clear of stereotypes. The best types of humour to use to make yourself relatable are self-deprecating and observational humour.
The type of humour you introduce can have a direct impact on how your people behave. For example, a 2017 LSE study found that certain types of ‘leader aggressive humour’ encouraged ‘norm violation’ at work.
Rule 5: Practice some starting points from which to launch into your content
Sentences that start with phrases such as ‘have you ever…’, ‘how many of you…’, ‘do you remember when…’, draw in an audience and include them. Ask a question and use laughter to engage.
As you can see, there is a good reason why successful leaders use humour to motivate teams. But one size doesn’t fit all, which is why it’s important to use the right kind of humour at the right time in the right setting.
