An (earnest) school leader's reflections on ‘Humour, Seriously’ by Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas
An introduction to humour and its power for school leaders. PART ONE
(A fairly bold start isn’t it? Part ONE. I’m already banking on you sticking around to read another one of these before you’ve even read this one. I stand by it.)
I found
and ’ book ‘Humour, Seriously’ at a crucial time in my own leadership development. It remains one of my favourite non-fiction reads of the last five years and I find it has become more and more relevant as I navigate my role as a senior leader in a large secondary school. They cover the subtle distinctions between humour and levity, talk about the psychological anatomy of what we find funny and offer ideas as to how humour can become your superpower at work, and in life in general. Humour is an incredibly powerful way for us to show who we are. What we laugh at reveals how we see the world. We can say the quiet part out loud, cut through tension and throw a spotlight onto several elephants in the room at once. I’ll cover more details of this excellent book in the much-awaited Part Two of this blog – but a little bit of context is needed first.
After eighteen years of teaching and an intense two-day interview, I was appointed to my first full senior leadership role on March 17th 2020. The entire UK school system shut down three days later in response to an unprecedented global health crisis. I tried not to take it as an inauspicious sign.
Once I started at the school, I was facing my first experience of senior leadership through the very strange and trying times of Covid lockdowns and – more complicatedly – re-openings. I was reading a lot, trying to find something which might shape my leadership style. Apparently I am a Transformational Leader – something which someone else pointed out to me – and I thrive off my connections with people. In my new job, I was entering a building where everyone was wearing a mask. It was hard to connect with people when they were frightened and disorientated by the pandemic. I wanted to let people know who I was and what I was about, but I was essentially fire fighting for a full year, trying to get everyone online for streamed lessons and trying to manage staff wellbeing at a time of heightened national anxiety.
I wanted to let people know who I was and what I was about
I felt more lightheaded than light-hearted and I was starting to feel very homesick for the school I had taught at for 16 years prior to this move. As is often the case in my life, it was humour which helped me through these dark times, and it is the thing which has always sustained me.
I love humour. During my Linguistics degree course, I completed an assignment looking at Grice’s Maxims as the basis of humour in sitcoms. I am beyond obsessed with The Office (US) and I know most of the film The Three Amigos off by heart. I haven’t ever consciously used humour in the workplace – any more than someone consciously thinks about how they say hello – but looking back it has always been a part of my reputation as a colleague. I had a wonderful team around me when I was Head of English and we shared many geeky in-jokes (which we still reference and laugh about now). The high point of our comedy tenure, if we do say so ourselves, was recaptioning the book ‘Crap Taxidermy’ with references to typical school staff and students. I can’t recommend it enough as a team bonding activity.
My love language is teasing others: if I (gently!) insult you to your face, then you can be assured I like you very, very much. I grew up in Doncaster with a tightly knit group of friends who used humour and insults to bond. Our WhatsApp group is little more than obscure funny road signs and references to amusing things which happened circa 1994. My adult friendships are still solidified through shared humour. I knew that I was going to be lifelong friends with my ‘cello desk partner at orchestra when we couldn’t supress our laughter at the inadvertent innuendo the conductor was using one evening at rehearsal [apparently we needed to play with ‘more sensuality’ and ‘reach a climax’. Can you blame us?!].
I can’t envisage being close with someone and not sharing humorous moments with them.
How about you? Can you think of a single meaningful relationship or team at work which isn’t punctuated by humour in some way? Maybe they do exist – but it has always been my experience that humour is a vital part of strong relationships and effective teams. Isn’t that interesting? Humour isn’t about being funny. It’s about being human. It is such a fundamental part of successful relationships at work, but we don’t talk about it or recognise its status.
As I began my leadership journey, this question struck me: how could humour help me be a better leader? Humour researchers at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and Florida International University explored the effects of humour in the workplace and found the following:
For employees, humour was linked to:
Higher job satisfaction
Improved work performance
Better health and coping effectiveness
Greater workgroup cohesion
Lower levels of burnout, stress, and withdrawal
For supervisors, using humour was associated with:
Enhanced subordinate performance and satisfaction
Improved perceptions of leadership effectiveness
Stronger team cohesion
Reduced employee withdrawal behaviours
I can’t think of a single leader who wouldn’t want this for their teams.
In “Humour, Seriously” Aaker and Bagdonas talk about the gradual loss of faith in leaders which we have seen creep in over the last decade or so. They describe how ‘the days of the mythic and infallible leader are behind us’ and how employees are looking for something more real. They cite a shocking Harvard Business Review survey which found that 58% of employees trusted a complete stranger more than they trust their own boss.
Not a situation to ignore.
So what can we do? As leaders we need to show up as our true authentic selves. Ok, so that sounds very ‘podcast’ of me…let me try that again. As leaders we need to actually be good people and allow people to see that we are actually good people. No masks (except during scary pandemics), no front and no bullsh*t.
Aaker and Bagdonas raise an interesting perspective on this. In an era of filters, social media and fake news, we are becoming acutely attuned to anything which we suspect isn’t transparent. For us in the UK, there has been an erosion of trust in the people who occupy the highest seats of power. People are rightly – and vocally – suspicious of bad actors in positions of seniority. In a world of AI generated content, where can we find that earnest truth?
I suppose I should clarify at this point – I do think that ‘earnest’ is a word which people would use to describe me. When they are being careless, they might spell this ‘o-v-e-r-l-y s-e-n-s-i-t-i-v-e’, but then we all make mistakes. I’m proud of how passionate and serious I am. I trust and align myself with other passionate, serious people. I suppose I’m trying to make the point that I am by no means a laugh-riot gag generator. Actually, I kind of loathe anyone who is. I mostly hate ‘jokes’ in the workplace – but I absolutely adore self-depreciation, unexpected reframing, call backs, gentle teasing and wordplay.
Ok, so I know you are now literally on the edge of your seat for Part Two where I will outline the contents of Aaker and Bagdonas’ book in more detail and look at what it can offer us as school leaders. You are going to love it - just you wait (I mean you are literally going to have to wait - I’m off the watch The Three Amigos.)