Last year, I launched a Spring Leadership Series to think about leadership in nontraditional ways. As 2024 continued, I presented additional ways to think about leadership during my Olympics Leadership Series and Holiday Leadership Series. With a new year upon us, I've invited 25 thought leaders to share their responses to five questions relating to team-building, reading, and leadership. My #SpringLeadershipSeries2025 began the first day of Spring and continues through June 20th, the first day of Summer.
Before we begin, I'd like to applaud two special individuals for providing the inspiration for this series. First, big applause goes to Erika Andersen, a leadership expert and author who I've had the pleasure of knowing for nearly 15 years, and she's appeared on my blog 13 times since 2011. She wrote an article for Forbes entitled, "How Springtime Can Make Us Better Leaders," and that article serves as the core of the series as its first question. Second, I also applaud Joseph Lalonde, a leadership expert and author of a book called REEL LEADERSHIP, for planting the seeds for last year's Spring Leadership Series on my blog. After I read Joe's book, I started looking at movies as well as works of fiction, TV shows, and TV characters with "leadership-tinted glasses."
For today's post, I'd like to introduce Michael Kerr. Michael is a Canadian Hall of Fame speaker who speaks on inspiring workplace cultures and businesses that leverage their humor resources to create outrageous results. He is the author of 8 books, including, "The Humor Advantage: Why Some Businesses Are Laughing All the Way to the Bank," "Hire, Inspire, and Fuel Their Fire," and "The Jerk-Free Workplace: How You Can Take the Lead to Create a Happier, More Inspiring Workplace."
QUESTION: Leadership expert and author Erika Andersen wrote an article for Forbes entitled, "How Springtime Can Make Us Better Leaders." In the article, Erika compared gardening to management and leadership. What are your thoughts, or was there something that stood out from the article?
MICHAEL KERR: I love the take in this article and completely agree with the analogy. I have used a similar analogy when it comes to creativity in the workplace, comparing it to a romantic date. You can't force romance to happen, but you can set the stage and create an environment that is more conducive to romance.
And I wholeheartedly agree with getting the right plants – as I write about in my book, "Hire, Inspire, and Fuel Their Fire," hiring the right employees who are a fit for your culture, and not just a fit – employees who will help you grow your culture – is 90 percent of the work when it comes to creating a truly inspiring workplace.
I would take the pruning analogy one step further and suggest that unfortunately, for the sake of the well-being of a company and the culture, one of the difficult tasks of any great leader is knowing when to transplant a plant that just isn't a good fit for the workplace environment. It doesn't necessarily mean they're a bad employee (or plant), it just means that they weren't a right fit for your environment - and the kindest thing you can do for both them and your team is to help them find an environment where they can flourish.
SHARE THIS: For the sake of the well-being of a company and the culture, one of the difficult tasks of any great leader is knowing when to transplant a plant (terminate an employee) that just isn't a good fit for the environment. ~@HumorAtWork #SpringLeadershipSeries2025 #DebbieLaskeysBlog
QUESTION: What was the most recent example of inspiring leadership that made an impact on you?
MICHAEL KERR: It was not so much an example of leadership in action, but an inspiring example that reflected leadership excellence. While recently delivering a workshop on workplace culture, an employee stood up and shared a story about how their CEO (who was standing 20 feet away from her) had come to her and another employee with an "epically bad, stupid idea." She elaborated on just how bad and stupid she thought the idea was (the CEO then chimed in and agreed) and how she handled the situation. The fact that she felt comfortable sharing that publicly, and that no one in the room of 100 employees laughed nervously or seemed surprised by her comments and willingness to speak out, spoke volumes about the culture in that company and the CEO's leadership style where it comes to creating a psychologically safe work environment.
QUESTION: What is your favorite team-building activity, and why?
MICHAEL KERR: It’s a silly one but it always gets people laughing: A theatre improv exercise called the "energy ball" where people form a circle in groups of 5-to-10 and clap out an imaginary energy ball to one another. Everyone always laughs (because it's so ridiculously silly) so it's a great energizer and stress buster. I use it to talk about communication skills, the power of laughter, and as a physical reminder that they hopefully will remember for a long time: that in every single interaction with another human being, they have the chance to pass along some positive energy, or do something that inadvertently sucks a bit of their soul out of them.
QUESTION: Which book is on the top of your to-be-read pile, and why?
MICHAEL KERR: My next book on the pile is You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters by Kate Murphy. I am always interested in improving my own communication skills and looking for fresh insights on any aspect of communication I can pass along to my audiences and readers, and the importance of listening is always top of mind for me - and this book was highly recommended.
QUESTION: In the past year, has a TV show, film, or work of fiction stood out as a result of its emphasis on leadership?
MICHAEL KERR: I just finished the third season of The Bear – a brilliant show about a Chicago restaurant. I was struck by many leadership lessons in this season. Often they were lessons related to what NOT to do as a leader - such as yelling at employees or not involving them properly in key workplace decisions. There's a pivotal theme around a list of non-negotiables the head chef writes down. He stresses that these are not "goals" but rather lines-in-the-sand, non-negotiables that everyone must commit to. He is, of course, speaking about values, and while his commitment to excellence and treating them as non-negotiables is laudable, he clearly would have had better success if he had co-created the values with his team rather than forcing the values upon his employees!
My gratitude to Michael for sharing his leadership insights and for being a part of my #SpringLeadershipSeries2025. Did these questions open your eyes to think about leadership in nontraditional ways? That was the hope!
Image Credit: Tanatat via DepositPhotos.
Read Erika Andersen's article, "How Springtime Can Make Us Better Leaders"
https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikaandersen/2015/05/14/how-springtime-can-make-us-better-leaders/
Read Michael's previous appearance here on my blog:
The Intersection of Employer Branding, Workplace Culture, and Leadership (December 2022)
https://www.debbielaskeysblog.com/2022/12/the-intersection-of-employer-branding.html
Connect with Michael at these links:
Website: https://www.MikeKerr.com
Books: https://mikekerr.com/books
Inspiring Workplaces YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UCeaRB1AE5C_RWBjK87wwRYg
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelkerr3
Twitter/X: https://www.twitter.com/HumorAtWork
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