- In today’s CEO Daily: Diane Brady talks to Zelle chief Denise Leonhard about deploying humor as a leadership skill.
- The big story: Trump suggests yanking licenses of TV networks that criticize him.
- The markets: Asia is down but the S&P 500 hit another record peak.
- Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune.
Good morning. When Zelle chief Denise Leonhard interviewed Preston McCaskill to head up operations of the peer-to-peer payment platform last year, she was impressed by his preparation, problem-solving instincts and curiosity. But what cemented the deal for her was his sense of humor. She “cracked a couple of jokes and gave him the space to be able to crack a few jokes,” she says. Once they started laughing, she knew he’d fit well with the team.
These are challenging times to be funny. Jokes can offend, annoy, insult or fall flat. Diverse teams mean diverse senses of humor and social media isn’t kind to jokes that are tasteless or taken out of context.
Yet numerous studies show that Leonhard is right to believe humor promotes creativity, productivity, connections, and culture. “If you actually have humor in the room, people will be willing to put in the extra hours to get something done because they’re enjoying themselves,” she said when we met yesterday. A lack of humor, on the other hand, “kills creativity and makes people want to work less.” But how can leaders deploy humor without doing damage?
Make the joke about you—Self-deprecating humor can be a potent tool for any leader. Done well, it humanizes you and can make you more relatable. Avoid sharing stories that might make colleagues question your intelligence, ethics or ability to do the job. Family is fair game if your partner and kids come off well but jokes about your Gulfstream or billionaire retreat might fall flat.
Ease tension—Former Cisco CEO John Chambers twice showed me the different duck calls he’d use to break up tension and remind people to relax: once as a demonstration and the second time in a meeting that needed it. As Zelle’s Leonhard says, that kind of move “takes a lot of the pressure out of the room, and it also gets people to feel more comfortable.”
Foster a sense of fun—Richard Branson understands the power of a crazy costume in generating buzz and making Virgin Group look like a great place to work. Better yet, he’s especially willing to look silly for a good cause, like the time he dressed as a flight attendant for the Starlight Foundation after losing a bet to Air Asia’s Tony Fernandez. Leonhard joined PayPal in 2015 as it was spinning out of eBay and “was like a gangly teenager that had all this opportunity but didn’t know what to do with it.” She credits former CEO Dan Schulman with inspiring a culture of fun and shared mission that started with treating people well.
Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com
