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According to CNBC, the researchers have long examined the relationship between personality traits and entrepreneurial intention and development. But still, there is a lot of confusion when it comes to treating men and women at work at an equal level.
Recently, a study was carried out that included 300 employees in the US across a wide variety of industries. The experiment was carried out to determine how humor is viewed when it comes from male versus female leaders giving a presentation. It was found that women who use humor during a presentation were more likely to be seen as disruptive and distracting. But the perception completely changed when it came to doing the same by men during their presentations.
The researchers of the study stated that women are more likely to be harmed by following the advice to include humor during work presentations as well as in any formal business setting. These results are considered to be held for first impressions and initial reactions. It was further explained in the paper that how the generally positive aspects of humor are interpreted differently based on gender and people think twice about whom they think is funny in the workplace.
But punishing women for using humor is not just unfair but also it is harmful to the organizations because of the following reasons:
It helps leaders to engage and motivate the teams:
When leaders are extremely serious, it makes it hard for employees to fully engage with their work. Instead, leaders who are funny, they help their team to elevate the performance by completely engaging in their work. Funny leaders boost the morale and performance of their teams and the inability to tolerate humor in women, not only constraints their ability to lead but also brings a bad influence on the entire organization.
Managing stress:
At the workplace, employees often have to deal with extremely stressful situations. This is something that gets reduced to a greater extent when humor is involved during the process. When women don’t express their humor at work, it deprives them of an important psychological tool that helps them to maintain greater self-esteem and resilience.
Increased job performance:
Studies have revealed that humor increases the performance of employees directly and makes them more productive. On the other hand, working in a boring environment burdens them with stress and limits them from using their full potential.
Therefore, for better performance at the workplace, women should not be expected to remain serious because it does not make them more productive. Instead, men in a working environment should be asked to adopt a more restrained behavioral pattern.
This article originally appeared on CNBC. You can read the original article here
