Seriously, have some fun!
I’ve been subjected to a lot of team-building exercises.
Trust falls, Lego building contests, finding your “color” and learning what it tells everyone about your personality, even a drum circle, and a croquet tournament.
Some of these were “fun,” I learned from others, but I’m not sure any had as much impact as the time our Senior Leadership Team dressed up in funny costumes and served lunch to everyone. (The CEO dressed in an Elvis costume, I wish I still had the pictures!)
When leaders don’t take themselves too seriously, teams can laugh at shared frustrations before solving them, and in cultures where humor happens naturally rather than being scheduled once a year, humans thrive!
Don’t believe me? Check this out!
A 2014 study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology tracked humor patterns across teams and found a direct link between humor in team interactions and team performance. Teams that laughed together performed 13% better. (Research from Oxford University) And a widely cited review in the Academy of Management found that leaders who use humor receive higher performance ratings from their own supervisors — a full year later.
Leaders who use humor are perceived as more competent. They get promoted faster, and they get more buy-in for their initiatives. (HBR, Feb 2021)
Laughing is medicine
Here’s the magic: humor signals safety. When a leader can be self-deprecating or find levity in a difficult moment, it signals to the team that honesty is welcome, that mistakes won’t be catastrophic, and that being human at work is allowed. Psychological safety — the thing that makes teams actually function — goes up.
Creativity goes up, too. One study found positive emotion linked to a 31% increase in creative output. When people feel good, they think more expansively. Need better ideas, break out the cat videos!
Don’t punch down
There’s a meaningful difference between humor that connects and humor that excludes. Sarcasm at someone’s expense, inside jokes that leave people out, a leader who “jokes around” in ways that make their team uncomfortable (Think Michael Scott) — these corrode trust rather than build it. A 2017 HBR piece documented how leaders who use edgy humor can inadvertently signal that boundary-crossing is acceptable, and the team follows their lead in ways that eventually become problems.
Forced fun is its own category of bad. Mandatory happy hours, choreographed icebreakers, the compulsory spirit week — these often backfire because they feel performative.
You don’t need a humor strategy
We can avoid the pitfalls and capture the many benefits without thinking too hard about it. The leaders I see get this right are genuinely curious about the people around them, willing to laugh at themselves, and comfortable enough in their own skin not to need every moment to be serious and important.
That’s a more useful target than trying to be funnier. It’s asking: Am I creating room for my team to be human?
Read more: Leading With Humor – HBR, May 2014
