Laughing at Oneself Matters in Leadership

“If you find it hard to laugh at yourself, I would be happy to do it for you.”

Groucho Marx

In a society that is measured by our abilities to be successful, to gain more, to be the best of the best, it is very likely to quickly forget that we are not the most important thing in the world, at least not for the rest of the world.

And what better way to stay humble than laughing at ourselves. After all, this ability is a sign of emotional maturity. Since a very young age we are taught by our parents, teachers and the society that we should strive to be impeccable with very small margin for error. And that sometimes brings burden which is difficult to cope with.

Of course competing with others is important, but we have to be careful. Because we might find ourselves in a position where we take ourselves much too seriously.

Where is this coming from?

Well, most of the times the reason is our own insecurity and fear. Fear that we might expose our weaknesses and embarrass ourselves. And the paradox is that this way we make people around us our own judges and we develop a dependency - our behaviour is no longer in our own will. We are desperately trying to please others. And by that usually we neither please them nor us.

When we take ourselves too seriously, normally we take others too seriously as well. And their opinions can easily hurt us.

So, what is the solution?

Maybe one of the most effective is, especially in working environment, instead of taking ourselves and others seriously, to actually take our/their work seriously. And like many things in life this might sound easy, but normally is very difficult to achieve.

It requires taking actions towards ourselves and our own behaviour.

The things we can do:

1. Face our fears.
2. Find our weaknesses.
3. Let the shame go.
4. Expose our weaknesses publicly.
5. Consciously laugh at ourselves in front of others.

Of course it is quite frightening to embarrass yourself publicly. But it is liberating as well. Very often our "Public Self" is different than our "Private(hidden) Self". And sometimes it can be exhausting to play someone we would like to be, but not truly are.

For that we need to search and find our weaknesses, to admit that we are not perfect and never will be and to let all the shame go.

We become much stronger when we expose our weaknesses publicly. No one would be able to hurt us and we lay a good foundation for build strong healthy relationships. It is easier to accept the weaknesses of others when we first accept our own.

And consciously use irony and even sarcasm towards ourselves, especially in front of others. This way we easily and fast build and maintain mutual trust.

Our ego is not important. Important is our self-respect. Like in the old story:

One hot afternoon on a beach, people noticed a young girl drowning. They quickly rescued her. The little girl was unconscious. An old man from a nearby cottage hurriedly reached for the girl laid down on the seashore. As the old man was about to hold the girl, a furious guy warned the people surrounding the girl to step aside, including the old man. “I was trained to do CPR. Stay out of this! Let me do it!” the guy exclaimed. The old man stood up and stepped behind the guy and watched quietly while the latter was performing CPR for the girl. After almost a minute, the little girl regained consciousness. The people around them felt relieved and began applauding the guy. The old man, who looks very happy, gratefully congratulated the guy as well. After two hours, however, the guy who saved the girl suddenly felt too much fatigue, experienced difficulty in breathing and became unconscious. A few minutes later, he woke up in an ambulance rushing him to the nearest hospital. Beside him was the old man he saw earlier at the beach now checking his pulse rate. The old man did the CPR on him while he was unconscious. This time he learned that the old man is a doctor. “Why didn’t you tell me you’re a doctor?” he asked. The doctor just smiled and answered: “It doesn’t matter to me whether you call me a doctor or not. A precious life is in danger. I became a doctor, not for fame, but to save lives. We had the same goal, and that was to save the girl. Nothing can surpass the feeling that you have just saved another life. There’s a lot of things to be protected other than our ego.” The teary-eyed man humbly said: “Well, you have just saved two more lives today.”

Self-deprecation, humor, irony are very strong instruments to become more open-minded, humble and honest to ourselves and the people around us.

If we want to be leaders who put others first and lead by example, is a necessity instead of take ourselves seriously, to take only the things we do at work or in our private life seriously.

And this way to build strong, healthy and long-lasting relationships - with ourselves and with others.

-Stoyan