Clowns in the boardroom

Humour, leadership and a creative workplace

Recently I’ve been writing about some places where clown services were a perceived good fit for an organization or event.

Today, I’d like to propose a place where people don’t imagine clown services fitting, yet, they make a great match.

There is a long tradition of clowns, fools and jesters being a part of life at court and assisting top leaders in their decision making processes. Their humour and wit helped understand, experience and express humility. They kept things, light, lively and moving along creatively.

The feudal courts of the past are now today’s boardrooms. Humour today is more important than ever.

In a recent article published in the peer reviewed journal Frontiers in Psychology, researchers Hassan Ali, Asif Mahmood, Ayaz Ahmad and Amir Ikram studied the impacts of a leaders humour on creativity and workplace culture.

The most remarkable finding for this fool?

They discovered that self deprecating humour by leaders had the most positive impacts with regard to taking risks, a…