February 2024

Great leaders take humour seriously

February - Great leaders take humour seriously

Disability is a common part of the experience of being human. Yet very few life experiences invoke the same mixture of pity, fear, awkwardness or feelings of inconvenience from others. 

These human reactions can make it challenging for employees and employers when setting out to create an inclusive workplace. It also means that the use of humour in our world is often seen as difficult or even inappropriate. 

With the rise of disability influencers, podcasters, bloggers and vloggers though, there are great examples of how to weave humour into serious conversations about disability. 

We love The Squeaky Wheel, for example, who create what they refer to as an ‘explosion of funny content from disabled people’.

They share satirical content about all aspects of disability (including employment), linking them to unrelated, but widely familiar cultural icon, for example ‘Providing accessibility deemed ‘slippery slope’ to providing all basic needs’.

Naomi Bagdonas, a management lecturer at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and behavioural scientist Jennifer Aaker delivered a TED talk called ‘Why great leaders take humour seriously’.

In this, Naomi explores how laughter accelerates feelings of trust, closeness and comfort. 

At PurpleSpace, we have seen many examples of disability ERG/Network leaders using humour to build strong relationships and create a more human, realistic and ultimately positive narrative about disability.

This month we invite you to consider:

  • How can you lead with positivity?
  • How do stand-out leaders in your organisation skilfully use humour?
  • How could you incorporate humour into your ERG/Network’s ‘brand’ without ignoring the barriers faced by employees with disabilities?

Peer Leadership Roundtables

One of the most valuable aspects of PurpleSpace membership is the opportunity to build your leadership capacity via quality conversation with other disability ERG/Network leaders.

Each month we convene groups of disability ERG/Network leaders to stimulate discussion on the monthly leadership lesson.

Connect with your peers during these interactive one-hour sessions for disability ERG/Network leaders. These sessions are a great way to share good practice and challenges, swap ideas and build your ERG/Network leadership capacity. 

We have two sessions to choose from in February on using humour effectively:

Australia and New Zealand Leadership Roundtable

We also bring together our Australia and New Zealand ERG Leadership community together for a session on how ERG’s can support their organisation’s quest for better data on 20 February 17:00 AEST

PurpleSpace and External Useful Resources

Tap into our Networkology know-how and check out some of the external learning that links to this month’s leadership lesson:

Sign up to receive our free newsletter

Hear more about our latest activities, including fundraising, upcoming events and how to get involved