Leadership Thought: Could You Give Me a Little More Laughter, Please!

Dear Friends

In times of crises there is a need for ‘leadership laughter.’ Amid the panic and fear surrounding our nation as we confront the growing impact  of the corona virus, there seems to be  little space for laughter or humor. 

Now I don’t want to be dismissive of the seriousness of the pandemic that faces us, but I must confess that I wish there was a little more room for some humor and laughter to break up these somber and solemn times. 

Interesting enough the assignment for our next church Spiritual Leadership Class I am helping to lead is chapter 9,  “More Essential Qualities or Leadership.”  And guess what is the  first quality listed? Surprising as it may seem, the first quality of a leader listed is humor. Yes, leaders need to be ‘laughers’

In the first three sentences of the chapter, I was interested to read these words: “Our sense of humor is a gift from God that should be controlled as well as cultivated. Clean, wholesome humor will relax tension and relieve difficult situations. Leaders can use it to displace tension with a sense or the normal.”  Spiritual Leadership, Oswald Sanders, p. 77.

Now obviously Oswald Sanders, who is no longer with us, hadn’t known anything about the  corona virus, but could his words have been  any more relevant or prophetic today when there is such a need for a “ tension relaxer” and something that would bring us back to “a sense of normal?”

Humor is an important quality for the leader in the pulpit to possess. “Criticized for including humor in a sermon, Charles Spurgeon, eye twinkling said, ‘If only you knew how much I hold back, you would commend me.’”   And then he adds, “’The preacher is not quite sure about a smile being a sin and at any rate he thinks it less a  crime to cause a momentary laughter than a half-hour of profound slumber.” Spiritual Leadership, p.78.

Now I am not asking for some reincarnation of Johnny Carson to suddenly appear on the scene, but I do think that even a little hint of humor would help lighten the blanket  of fear that has enveloped our nation.

Bill Wilson, one of the founders of Alcohol Anonymous, prayed, “Please Lord, teach us to laugh again, but God, don’t ever let us forget that we cried.” This statement screams of the word balance. Yes, there is “a time to weep but there is also a time to laugh,” and one without the other would greatly devalue  our lives.

And so, in the interest of coming down on the side of laughter and hopefully doing my best to dispel the shroud of fear and sadness pervading our land, I share the following story: 

Three young men left home and all did exceedingly well financially. They were bragging about how they had honored their mother with the gifts they had given to her on her birthday. 

One brother told how he has provided a gift of a 20-room mansion for his mother. 

The second son told how he has purchased the top of the line Mercedes Benz for his mother and even  included a driver with it. 

The third son bragged he has bought an expensive parrot for his mother. His mother  loved the Bible but had lost her sight, and this parrot had been trained to memorize every chapter and verse in the bible. The son told how it has been trained in a far-off Asian monastery and how  for each of the last  twenty years  he had  paid the trainers ten thousand dollars annually to continue its memorization of the entire bible.  He knew his mom would love his gift for now whenever she had trouble seeing and reading a  verse, she could ask the parrot to simply recite it for her.

Later  each of the boys received letters from their mom acknowledging their gifts. To Marvin, her first son, she said “I received the gift of the mansion, but since I don’t move around much anymore, and live in only one room,  I hate the thought of having to clean all those other rooms.”

To Morris she wrote” I received the gift of the expensive car, but since I am old, I don’t go out anymore and so I don’t  need it, and the driver you sent me was rude so  I fired him.”

And finally, to the third son, she wrote. “Mitchell, I knew how much you loved me and how you would send me the perfect gift. Thanks for the wonderful chicken I just enjoyed for dinner!”

Have a great day, and please no e-mails from those who might think it  irreverent to encourage laughter in "such a time as this." 

Yours in faith and friendship,
Tom