By Leslie Rohonczy, IMC™, PCC
(LISTEN TO NARRATED AUDIOARTICLE VERSION)
There’s a guy at the front of the room, droning over his Powerpoints with the emotional range of a beige filing cabinet. Someone mumbles, “Great point, Ken,” without looking up from his phone. Someone else suggests they “circle back for confirmation and feedback” after the meeting. The rest of the team is not-so-subtly filling out their Meeting Buzzword Bingo cards: “Low-hanging fruit.” “Move the needle.” “Bandwidth.” “Synergy.” “Let’s socialize this.” And the senior leader stares into the abyss of his endless, joyless, budget meeting.
There is no joy here. Nobody laughs. Nobody relaxes. Not a single smirk was had.
And we still wonder why creativity, innovation, and engagement are disappearing faster than the free donuts in the lunchroom.
I spend a lot of time coaching senior leaders, and I’ve noticed something, well, funny. The leaders with the healthiest, highest-functioning teams are usually the most human. Not sloppy or inappropriate. And not trying too hard, like trying to amp up the latest TikTok slang.” Trust me, nobody wants to hear the VP say “it’s giving disruption.”
The best leaders often know how to create emotional oxygen - and they do it with humour and forms of play. Their teams laugh. There’s looseness. People interrupt each other with excitement. Someone occasionally says something weird, and they all laugh together; not 'at', but 'with' each other. The atmosphere feels alive.
And before somebody rushes into the comments to say, “Well, business is serious,” yes, of course it is. So is heart surgery. Research on surgical teams has shown that appropriate humour can reduce tension, strengthen team cohesion, and help clinicians cope in high-stress environments. Serious work has never required emotional sterility. Human beings are not machines.
Research has also consistently linked humour and positive emotional states with lower stress, stronger social bonding, better creativity, and improved cognitive flexibility under pressure; all aspects that contribute to high-performance teams.
A study published in the journal Emotion found that positive moods broaden attention and improve creative problem solving ("The Broaden-and-Build Theory of Positive Emotions," Fredrickson, 2001). Research from Stanford Graduate School of Business has also explored how humour increases status and interpersonal connection in leaders ("Humour, Power, and Status," Cooper, Kong & Crossley, 2018). Even the Mayo Clinic has written extensively about humour’s physiological impact on stress reduction and resilience ("Stress Relief from Laughter? It’s No Joke," Mayo Clinic, updated 2023).
It makes sense. Nobody does their sharpest thinking while simultaneously trying not to sound foolish. You can feel people editing themselves before they speak. Every sentence arrives pre-approved by Legal, rinsed and fluffed by Corporate Communications, and carefully scrubbed of anything that might accidentally sound human.
Meanwhile, belly laughs are coming from down the hall. "Why can't I be part of THOSE meetings?", we grumble. Teams doing extraordinary work often sound like they're having fun. It's a little chaotic, there’s energy, and teasing. There's room for personality and authenticity, and enough psychological safety that people stop rehearsing every sentence before speaking.
I once worked with an executive who was widely respected for her brilliant strategic mind. She was equally well known (one might say notorious) for her relentless intensity and razor-sharp scrutiny. When she entered meetings, it was a sphincter-shifting moment for her team. People physically changed posture! Backs straightened. Shoulders tightened. Voices flattened. And any remnants of humour disappeared instantly. Think the Devil Wears Prada's Miranda Priestly without the zinger punchlines. When she arrived on the floor, instant messages pinged across the team, as staff alerted each other to her presence. You could almost hear everybody’s internal monologue as she arrived: “Okay, everyone, gird your loins.”
In one of our coaching sessions, she said she wanted to find a way to get her team of Vice Presidents to lead more strategically. She thought they typically spent too much time in the weeds, and she'd noticed that they answered carefully, second-guessed themselves, and spoke as if they were students trying not to disappoint a terrifying university professor. She didn't realize that every interaction with her felt high stakes. Again, a wonderful human being and a smart leader with good intentions. But somewhere along the line, she had unconsciously equated seriousness and a critical edge with good leadership.
Lots of leaders do this. Everything becomes heavy, measured, controlled, earnest, and they become emotionally exhausting in the name of professionalism. Meanwhile, their employees are sitting there thinking: “At what point does a meeting legally qualify as a hostage situation?"
Humour matters because tension matters. Every workplace has tension: deadlines, politics, conflict, pressure, uncertainty, competing priorities. And leaders have enormous influence over whether that tension becomes corrosive or connective.
Connective tension is when the right kind of humour releases pressure without dismissing reality. It tells people: “We can survive hard things without becoming emotionally constipated.” That’s leadership.
And no, this is not permission to become the office comedian. Some leaders hear “bring more humour” and think they suddenly need to transform their PowerPoint presentation into a 12-minute stand-up routine. Please... just don’t. There’s a difference between performative humour and relational humour. One desperately needs attention. The other creates connection.
The most effective humour in leadership is usually self-aware, gentle, and human. It often comes from leaders who are comfortable enough with themselves to stop 'performing perfection'. That kind of humour builds trust because it lowers perceived hierarchy. People exhale around leaders who feel emotionally real and who can laugh at themselves.
I remember one CEO telling me about a disastrous presentation where his technology failed. His speaking notes disappeared, and he accidentally advanced to a slide containing a private reminder that simply said:
“SLOW DOWN. YOU LOOK LIKE A MAN BEING CHASED THROUGH THE WOODS BY A WOLVERINE.”
The entire audience burst out laughing. According to him, it became the strongest presentation connection point he'd had all year. Why? Because everybody suddenly relaxed. The mask cracked. Collective humanity appeared.
Nobody trusts perfection anymore, anyway. We’ve all met those leaders who speak in flawless corporate language while looking like they haven’t experienced a genuine emotion since 2014. That’s not executive presence; that's a corporate chatbot with a pension plan.
Playfulness also matters far more than most organizations realize. I'm not talking about childishness, but rather playfulness. Curiosity, experimentation, lightness, and the willingness to think sideways. Some of the strongest leadership teams I’ve ever encountered, or been lucky enough to be part of, spent some of their meeting time laughing, because they trusted each other enough to think and speak freely.
Research into “Happiness and Productivity” (University of Warwick, 2014) found that happiness can increase productivity by about 12 percent. Other studies have also connected positive emotional states with better problem-solving and broader cognitive flexibility.
This matters because some organizations slowly drain the spontaneity out of communication. People stop speaking casually. Comments get 'optimized', and every email starts sounding like it was reviewed by three lawyers and a hostage negotiator. Listen, nobody wants to say the wrong thing or look foolish. And when nobody is willing to loosen their grip for even ten seconds, eventually, people stop bringing bold ideas altogether. Boldness requires psychological safety, but we humans get cautious when our environment feels emotionally risky.
One of the most useful questions a leader can ask is this: “When was the last time this team laughed together naturally?” I'm not talking about forced fun, like mandatory bowling or trust falls. (Hey, nothing says “this workplace understands human dignity” quite like falling backward into the arms of Steve from Procurement.) I mean real laughter; the kind that happens when people feel safe enough to stop managing themselves so tightly.
Laughter can be diagnostic. Humour is often evidence of the presence of trust, of belonging, and nervous system regulation. Healthy teams laugh. Not all day, and not constantly, but regularly. And leaders who understand that have an enormous advantage, especially now. Our modern workplaces are tired. People are carrying stress levels that would have sounded medically concerning ten years ago. Many employees feel emotionally overextended, socially cautious, and mentally saturated.
Leaders who can create moments of fun, relief, humanity, and emotional brightness without becoming performative become magnetic. People are drawn toward leaders who can help them feel human.
YOUR COACHING CHALLENGE
For the next two weeks, treat this like a social experiment. Your mission is to see whether small moments of humour and humanity change the emotional climate around you.
Try a few of these:
Show up to one meeting and announce a ban on corporate jargon entirely. Tell them that every time somebody says, “circle back,” “bandwidth,” or “move the needle,” you will all dramatically sigh like a Victorian widow.
Tell one story where you were genuinely ridiculous, awkward, or silly. Not polished vulnerability, but the kind where people laugh because they recognize themselves in it.
Notice how often people shrink their own ideas before speaking. You can usually tell what's coming because they offer qualifiers like “Maybe this is stupid…” “I haven’t thought this through…” "I might be wrong but..." When it happens, interrupt the self-editing with warmth: “Say the thing.” “No disclaimers.” “Now I really want to hear it.”
Monitor for Beige. Give everyone permission to call out moments when the team starts sounding emotionally over-polished. Encourage callouts like “That sounds a bit beige.” “Your answer sounds suspiciously lawyer-approved,” or “Try that again, but as a human.”
Then reflect on these questions:
Which experiment created the biggest shift in energy, and what changed specifically?
What surprised you most about your team’s response to a little more humanity?
How often did you notice people softening, shrinking, or beige-ifying their contributions before speaking?
What happened when you interrupted that pattern and invited the real thought instead?
If your team had permission to be a little less polished and a little more human going forward, what might become possible?
Somewhere along the way, many organizations trained personality out of professionalism. I think it’s time to bring a little of it back.
If your team has become emotionally cautious, overly polished, or painfully beige, and you want to build a leadership culture where people think more freely, collaborate more honestly, and actually enjoy working together again, reach out for a free exploratory Executive Coaching conversation at www.leslierohonczy.com.