The Serious Case for Laughing at Work

When was the last time you really laughed at work?

I mean laughed. The kind where you lose your train of thought. Someone else starts laughing because you're laughing. And for a minute, whatever felt terribly important five seconds ago suddenly feels a little less so.

I've been lucky. Throughout my career, I've worked with many incredibly smart, witty, genuinely funny people. We worked hard. We dealt with difficult issues. We didn't always agree. But the teams I was fortunate to lead laughed. A lot.

I also once worked closely with someone who never laughed. I mean never.

It took me a while to put my finger on what felt different about that relationship. Then one day it hit me. We never laughed together.

And once I noticed it, I started noticing it everywhere. She didn't laugh when it was just the two of us. She didn't laugh when there were three or four of us. I couldn't remember ever seeing her really laugh at work.

Once I saw it, I couldn't unsee it. And it made me wonder: What happens between people when they laugh together? What might be missing when they don't? And what does it cost someone, over the course of a career, to never have that moment with another person?

Laughter does more than lighten the mood

Turns out, quite a lot happens when we laugh. Research has found that laughter can lower stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline and trigger the release of endorphins. It's also been linked to greater engagement, creativity, collaboration and resilience.

There's science behind something many of us have experienced firsthand.

Think about a tense meeting interrupted by a genuinely funny moment. Nothing about the situation changed. The deadline was still the deadline. The problem still needed solving. The difficult conversation still needed to happen.

But the room changed. People relaxed. Someone who hadn't said much suddenly spoke up. The conversation started moving again.

Laughter can be a reset. And when it's shared, it connects us.

Think about the teams where you've done your best work

Were they serious all the time? Probably not.

Chances are there were inside jokes. Ridiculous moments. Stories that got funnier every time someone retold them. Maybe a meeting that went completely off the rails and became legendary.

We don't usually talk about any of this when we talk about high-performing teams. We talk about trust, accountability, communication, psychological safety and shared goals. But I wonder if laughter is one of the ways we know some of those things are actually there.

Shared laughter lowers barriers, even if only for a moment. Titles recede. Defenses come down. We see one another as people rather than roles on an org chart.

You can't manufacture that. But you can notice when it's there. And when it isn't.

Laughter as a signal

This is where I keep coming back to the colleague who never laughed.

Looking back, I don't think the absence of laughter between me and that colleague was the real problem. It was a symptom. It was telling me something about the relationship that I hadn't quite let myself see yet.

I've thought a lot since then about what it takes to hold laughter back that consistently. I don't think she couldn't laugh. For whatever reason, she didn't at work.

Maybe that's not as unusual as it sounds.

Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas, who teach about humor and leadership at Stanford, point to what they call the "humor cliff." In a global study of more than a million people, laughter drops dramatically right around the time we enter the workforce.

Think about that. We go to work and, somewhere along the way, many of us stop laughing as much.

Why?

Aaker and Bagdonas argue that we've created a false choice between gravity and levity. We assume that if the work matters, we need to be serious. If we want to be taken seriously, we need to look serious.

I suspect that pressure can be even stronger for women who've had to work harder to be taken seriously in the first place. Laughing can feel like a risk. Holding back can feel safer.

But holding back has a cost too. It's quieter, and it shows up as distance instead of a mistake. Connection is harder when we never let our guard down.

Leaders have a lot to do with the answer

Leaders willing to laugh at themselves signal that perfection isn't required. A little lightness during a difficult stretch reminds everyone that the difficulty doesn't have to consume the room. Laughing with people, never at their expense, builds something that's hard to build any other way.

Maybe we've confused taking the work seriously with taking ourselves seriously.

They're not the same thing.

Some of the strongest leaders I've known could hold both at once. They understood the gravity of what was in front of them and still left room for levity.

This is, I think, an underrated leadership skill. Not being the funniest person in the room. Just being willing to let a room be a little human. To let a genuinely absurd moment be absurd instead of pushing past it. To laugh at your own mistake instead of managing it into a lesson learned.

That willingness gives everyone else permission to do the same.

Of course, humor can get it wrong

We've all seen that too. Sarcasm that lands harder than intended. Jokes that exclude. Humor aimed at someone with less power. The uncomfortable laughter when the boss makes a joke and everyone knows they're supposed to laugh. That's not the same thing at all.

And neither is mandatory fun. Few phrases drain the joy out of a room faster than "mandatory team-building activity."

The laughter I'm talking about isn't orchestrated. It happens naturally between people who trust each other enough to let it.

Which may be exactly why it's worth paying attention to.

Listen for it

We measure a lot at work. Engagement. Productivity. Retention. Performance. Innovation. We survey people about belonging and psychological safety. We build dashboards.

Maybe there's a simpler signal worth noticing.

Do people laugh together?

Not constantly. Not performatively. And certainly not because someone added "laughter" to a list of desired leadership behaviors.

Do they genuinely laugh together?

Because laughter doesn't mean people aren't taking the work seriously. Some of the most serious work of my career happened alongside some of the biggest laughs.

A few months after leaving my corporate career, someone asked what I missed most. I didn't have to think about it.

The laughter.

Years later, I've reflected on that answer many times. And I think I understand a little better why it came so quickly.

If you're someone who's learned to hold it back, to keep the guard up because it feels safer or more professional, that's worth paying attention to.

Let yourself laugh with the people you work with.

Not because it's strategic. Because it's one of the most human ways we have to connect with one another. Maybe that's reason enough.

Do the serious work. Solve the hard problems. Hit the goals.

And laugh along the way. Out loud. With someone.