Humour, used skillfully, greases the management wheels… it reduces hostility, deflects criticism, relieves tension, improves morale and helps communicate difficult messages… A natural facility with humor… is intertwined with, and appears to be a marker for, a much broader managerial trait: high emotional intelligence.”
Fabio Sala, “Laughing all the Way to the Bank,” Harvard Business Review (September 2003)
study out of harvard on status and humour: people who use humour immediately attract a level of status. But when it’s inappropriate humour, the response is that you lose the appearance of competency.
Successful use of humour you get the double-barrel: you are seen as high status, effective AND competent
Kelly Leonard on his podcast The Second City Works in conversation with Gretchen Rubin.
Laughter is good for leaders too
And on Laughter: Daniel Goleman research quoted in Dan Pink’s Whole new mind – most effective leaders are funny – charges laughed three times more often than other managers
Dan Pink also mentions some Centre for neuroimmunology stats – Laughter lowers lower stress hormones, increases immune system function. It also has aerobic benefits – activates cardiovascular – increases heart rate, pumps more blood into internal organse. Ten minutes of rowing is equal to 1 minute of hearty laughter (heart rate wise). Here’s a research paper on Laughing Qi Gong
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