A Smile and Laughter Go a Long Way!
Find humour through the tough times.
Offer a smile to reassure the world it is not ending.
Share a grin when successful at a Leadership Moment.
Laugh deeply, just because…
Humour. Smile. Grin. Laugh.
These human behaviours are a universal language, and they are best rolled out more often than we might imagine.
Influential Leaders use a range of tactics to ensure that Leadership Moments produce positive outcomes, and humour is one of them.
Leadership is often serious business as it nudges people’s boundaries, creating stress and strain as we leave our comfort zones. However, it is precisely at these moments that a fleeting smile, an encouraging grin, or a silly joke can help us push through.
Many Leadership Moments also require long-term application and commitment, requiring us to persevere over the long haul. Humour at the right moments helps us to endure.
I often think about Ernest Shackleton, the great Antarctic adventurer, who had to keep his ship’s crew alive and sane for months on end as they struggled to survive the harshest conditions—biting cold, lack of food and proper shelter, profound uncertainty, and a failed primary mission. Shackleton never lost his sense of humour, acting out silly charades with his fellow crewmates.
I have witnessed the value of this tactic in my own Leadership Moments, especially the big and serious ones.
Humour makes it possible to go first, to go further and to tough it out.
Research confirms this intuitive notion: we need laughter in our collectives—in our families, teams, schools, communities and businesses.
The workplace [and each collective] needs laughter.
According to Wharton, MIT and London Business School, every chuckle or guffaw brings with it a host of team benefits. Laughter relieves stress and boredom, boosts engagement and well-being, and spurs not only creativity and collaboration but also analytical precision and productivity. *
Andrew Carnegie, the successful industrialist and philanthropist offers us sage advice: There is little success where there is little laughter.
So, no matter what Leadership Moments you face there is a place for humour—whether it’s a wide smile, some idle banter, a silly joke, or body shaking laughter.
Be successful, be an Influential Leader!
Regards,
Colin @ Karoo
We Activate Leadership!
*Leading with Humour. Harvard Business Review. Alison Beard. May 2014.
Leadership Note: 4824.251124
e: colind@karoo.world
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