Why great leaders need to take humor seriously
As we build our skillsets as leaders and prepare our teams for big shifts and change with the new campus coming this spring, one often overlooked and under-appreciated leadership skill is humor.
We can tend to think that if we take our work and our mission seriously, there is no room for laughter and levity, but in fact, research shows humor is a key factor in leading successfully.
-Leaders with a good sense of humor are seen as 27% more motivating and inspiring
-Employees are 15% more engaged when humor is present
-Teams are twice as likely to solve a creativity challenge if they laughed beforehand
Injecting humor into our communication can also help make our teams more cohesive, tenacious, innovative, and resilient.
-Humor helps break down perceived barriers between authority figures and subordinates
-Humor helps break tension when stakes are high and teams are facing tough challenges
-Humor provides a physiological boost to improve our toughness including boosting our immune systems and lowering stress levels, benefits that can result in fewer sick days and lower stress-related job turnovers
-Humor builds trust, changing the chemistry of our brain to make us more primed for connection and able to create emotional bonds
-Humor makes us more creative and innovative because it allows us to try again after failure, iterate more easily, and learn from our mistakes
According to Stanford Lecturer, Naomi Bagdonas, injecting humor is as simple as living our lives on the “precipice of a smile.”
“Start small,” Bagdonas said. “Choose to live on the precipice of a smile. When we do, we create teams, communities and families where joy and laughter come more easily, laughing together.”
Our brains are wired to see what we expect, so expecting to find opportunities for joy and laughter shifts not only how we interact with our work, but how our work – and those we work with – interact with us.
Check out this list for 30 benefits of using humor at work, and tips for getting started with humor and adding more lightness and laughter into your leadership this week.
SAVE-THE-DATE: October Leadership Roundtable
Mission-Driven Innovation with Dr. Thomas Graham
October 18th, 12pm-1pm CDT **VIRTUAL ONLY**
We’re excited to continue the conversation on innovation with our October Leadership Roundtable.
Dr. Thomas Graham, Chief Innovation Officer at Kettering Health, will guide the Trinity Health Leadership Team on Mission-Driven Innovation, helping to make innovation accessible to employees at any level of the organization and “flipping-the-switch” for all of us to see opportunities to innovate everyday.
Dr. Graham is a world-renowned orthopedic hand surgeon, healthcare executive, author, inventor, and entrepreneur who holds over 60 patents, has published over 100 scholarly articles, and has founded four medical device companies. He has served as the hand surgery consultant, team physician, and medical director for numerous sports teams in the NFL, NHL, NBA, MLB, and PGA. Dr. Graham previously served as Cleveland Clinic’s Chief Innovation Officer and wrote an innovation playbook called “Innovation the Cleveland Clinic Way: Powering Transformation and Putting Ideas to Work” during his tenure.
***Please note, this roundtable will be VIRTUAL ONLY. Click here to RSVP.
SAVE-THE-DATE: Triannual III – Innovation
November 14-15, 2022 | Minot Municipal Auditorium
Join us as we continue our Leadership Quest and Making More Possible through instilling personal resilience, increasing employee engagement, improving the patient experience, and inspiring operational innovation.
In this Triannual Workshop, we’ll address the reality that healthcare is rapidly changing and evolving and cutting-edge innovation at scale is becoming more and more necessary for health systems to survive. We’ll work to address our processes and systems from a fresh perspective and work together to prepare our teams for one of Trinity Health’s biggest innovations, our new healthcare campus & medical district opening next spring.
DAY I: NOVEMBER 14, 2022 | 12:00PM – 4:30PM
11:30 AM Doors Open & Lunch Provided
12:00 PM – 4:30 PM Presentation & Workshops
DAY II: NOVEMBER 15, 2022 | 8:00AM – 12:30PM
7:30 AM Doors Open & Breakfast Provided
8:00 AM – 12:30 PM Presentation & Workshops
**Coffee + Water Available Both Days; Vending Machines on Site
LOCATION:
Minot Municipal Auditorium
420 3rd Ave SW, Minot
Please click here to RSVP.
SHARE YOUR WINS! 🎉🎉
Leadership is a team sport and we all get better when we support and learn from each other. Click here to share your wins from this past month and shout out your teammates and fellow leaders who’ve demonstrated exceptional leadership and resilience through change this past month.