Idea in Brief
The Problem
Humor is widely considered essential in personal relationships, but in leaders, it’s seen as an ancillary behavior. Though some leaders use humor instinctively, many more could wield it purposefully.
The Benefits
Humor helps build interpersonal trust and high-quality work relationships and influences behaviors and attitudes that matter to leadership effectiveness, including employee performance, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and creativity.
The Balance
These benefits don’t come without potential costs. The guidelines in this article suggest ways to capture the benefits of humor while avoiding the downside risks.
A few years ago, we conducted a research study in which we asked people to help us create an ad campaign for a travel service called VisitSwitzerland.ch (which we’d made up). We put the participants into small groups and showed them a photo—a Swiss landscape of a lake, a mountain, and the country’s distinctive flag with its white plus sign against a red background—accompanied by the question: “What made you fall in love with Switzerland?” We gave participants three minutes to come up with a memorable answer and then had them share their ideas with their groups.