The Ted talked titled “Leading with Laughter: The Power of Humor in Leadership” focuses on the direct relationship between leadership success and the ability to not take oneself too seriously. His talk begins with a story of how he believes he was able to keep a very fluid job position, and eventually get promoted in his industry. Working in a University administration, he knew that it would be necessary for him to go beyond just doing his job right, as any mistake could result in losing his position. Success at his job would require building connections in order to create benefits to himself beyond production. This simply makes coworkers more willing to accept mistakes and general humanness. To achieve this, the speaker went to a mall with many of his coworkers to spend the day. When at the mall, he claims to have accidentally used a womens bathroom before meeting back up with his coworkers. Rather than hiding what had happened, he chose to share the mistake with his coworkers, ready for them to laugh at him the remainder of the day. By building this connection with his coworkers, and simply making then laugh, he became seen as an asset simply for being well-liked.

The speaker continues to explain how  he observes an inverse relationship between how seriously leaders take themselves, and how seriously those they lead perceive them to be. Leaders often develop egos alongside certain positions, and fail to realize that feeling more important will not result in others seeing them as important. The opposite effect truly occurs, as it makes followers far more interested in criticizing even the slightest mistakes. Humor is an incredible tool for countering these effects. By making one’s followers laugh, one signals that they understand life just the same way as those they lead. Leaders don’t realize that those they lead often implicitly assume that leaders only care about the goals they set out to achieve, and don’t have an understanding of, or care for, their followers emotions. By making those one leads laugh, one also makes their followers less afraid of error, making them more creative, and generally more productive. Laughing puts everyone on the same page, and is an extremely useful tool for leaders.

Thinking of this concept, I cannot help but judge many of the political leaders of the current era, as well as many of the contradictory traits people seek out in leaders. Americans commonly like when their leaders “project strength”, yet strength often comes with the horrible side effect of an indestructible ego. Leaders often take themselves more seriously than necessary, and do not admit their true faults. If presidents were to explain their ideas through cost/benefit analysis, analyzing the pros and cons of their plans, and recognizing their human limitations, they’d receive far better responses to their messages. The ability to make the people laugh can also go an extremely long way for citizen outreach, yet many leaders criticize jokes made by politicians as a lack of seriousness. The speaker in this Ted talk suggests that this often criticized lack of seriousness could benefit the people. Leaders ought to try and make those they lead laugh more, as it seems as though it would only yield positive responses.