Leadership Thought: Good Leaders Possess the Ability to Laugh at Themselves.

Dear Friends,

Those who know me know that I enjoy laughter. I think laughter is a very important part of leadership, and that one of a leader’s responsibilities is to create an environment where laughter and joy are always present realities in the workplace.

Great leaders have the ability to laugh at themselves. One day Abraham Lincoln was giving a speech when a heckler kept repeatedly  interrupting him shouting, “Lincoln you are two faced.” Finally, Lincoln stopped his message and turned to his critic and replied. “Sir, if I am two faced, do you think I would still be wearing the face I have?”

Oswald Sanders, author of Spiritual Leadership, writes about the importance of humor. He quotes a brief comment by the late German theologian and preacher Helmet Thielecke who asks, “Should we not see that lines of laughter about the eyes are just as just as much a mark of faith as are the lines of care and seriousness? Is it only earnestness that is baptized? Is laughter pagan?... a church is in a bad way when it banishes laughter from its sanctuary and leaves It to the cabaret, nightclub, and the toastmasters. Spiritual Leadership, Oswald Sanders, P. 68.

His comments made me think of a message given by the late North Carolina State basketball coach, Jimmy Valvano in 1993 shortly before his death.

Coach Valvano was one of the premier college basketball coaches of his time who was sadly struck down by cancer during the prime of his coaching career. He loved life, and he loved to make people laugh.

Coach Valvano gave a famous speech at a time when his body was filled with tumors, and he was so weak that he had to be helped to the podium by his good friend and colleague, Dick Vitale.

His remarks were moving and there was hardly a dry eye in the audience. To this day I can summarize his simple but powerful message. He taught that there are three things that everyone should do each day: “laugh, think, and cry.”

It was his first point that especially captured my attention. Every day we should take time to laugh.

All this made me think of what Duffy Daugherty, a colorful Michigan State football coach of years past once said. He remarked that “Everyone needed three bones to journey successfully through life: a wishbone, to dream on… a backbone, for strength and courage to get through the tough times… and a funny bone, to laugh at life. along the way.”  (Day by Day, Chuck Swindoll, P. 37)

Not bad advice. How important laughter is to the human soul. The scripture put it this way: “A cheerful heart is  good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.” (Proverbs. 17: 22.)

One of the qualities that endears others to us is our ability to laugh and to make others laugh. How important it is not to be afraid to laugh at ourselves, or in a loving way to  help others to be comfortable in laughing at themselves. The famous preacher Charles Spurgeon really loved life. His favorite sound, it was said, was laughter, and he would frequently lean  back in the pulpit and roar over something that struck him funny. His laughter was a winsome aspect of his personality.

One of my favorite speakers is Tony Campolo, a speaker, pastor and author who taught for many years at Eastern College in Philadelphia Pa.

He shares the following story in his book The Kingdom of God Is a Party. He writes, “One day I got on an elevator in the World Trade Center in New York City. It was one of those express elevators that goes fifty floors without making a stop. The elevator was filled with briefcase- bearing, somber businessmen on their way to heavy meetings.”

“As I got on the elevator, a feeling of fun ran through me. And, instead of turning and facing the door, as we all are socialized to do, I just stood there facing the people. When the elevator doors closed, I smiled coyly and announced, ‘we’re going to be traveling together for quite a while, you know.’ And then, I added, 'what do you say we all sing?’”

“The reaction was wonderful. They did! You should have been there as dozens or so businessmen threw aside their seriousness and joined in a ringing rendition of “You Are My Sunshine.”

“By the time the elevator got to the 50^th floor, we were all laughing”. 

Being a Christian on that elevator was turning some men made numb by the affairs of the world, into party animals .” The Kingdom of God is a Party, P.P. 118-119.

It seems to me that if the Bible can use such words as celebrate, rejoice, and Hallelujah, then our lives should exude the same biblical vitality.

So, let’s ‘party hearty’ you party animals for if the Kingdom of God is a party, I don’t want to miss the fun.

Yours in faith and friendship

Tom.