Why Leaders Should Smile More

The surprising truth about mood

Imagine a productive company that makes a lot of money. How do you imagine their people? Are they serious or smiling? How about their leaders?

The stereotype of a leader usually is a severe person wearing a suit. That looks like more a boss than a leader for me, but unfortunately, that is the stereotype most of us have in our minds. A leader cannot show weakness, cannot make jokes, cannot smile, cannot have fun at work.

Is that really true?

People copy others

“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” — Jim Rohn

Even though the sunlight is weaker today as the sky is full of clouds, I put on my sunglasses. It is Saturday morning, and I am about to bike through Porto Alegre city’s shore. I have my AirPods Pro and a long playlist ready to rock my fasted cardio. I open a smile and bang my head as the music plays its first chord.

As I go through the shore, I saw many weekend-athletes running and biking. I don’t really care as I listen to a 20-minutes progressive rock song and sing with it after the 3-minutes guitar solo. I notice that most people that are exercising take serious faces with them. I understand that it is harder to have a happy attitude when we are demanding too much from our bodies. What is the excuse to not have a happy face when not exercising?

Have you ever wondered why grown-ups are usually like that while babies carry big smiles? We assume that an older person should have a serious face. That’s what we are used to seeing, and that’s what we end up doing too. Although we appear to be smiling more in photos than our parents and grandparents, that’s not how we actually live. Little by little, babies’ smiles are getting weaker and weaker, and when they finally become grown-ups, they don’t appear as much as they used to as before. Why is that?

Humans may be the most adaptive species, as constant climate change may have given us this flexibility, says Scientific American. Over cycles lasting hundreds of thousands of years, forests overrun arid regions of central Africa and gave way to grasslands, and deep lakes fractured contiguous landscapes. It was within the context of this swiftly changing landscape that humans evolved their sizable brains and capacity for adaptive behavior. Thinking creatively to imagine novel solutions to survival threats proved to be a significant asset in such a world.

However, according to Greater Good Magazine, some researchers think that, rather than making our living as innovators, human beings survive and thrive precisely because we don’t think for ourselves. Instead, people cope with challenging climates and ecological contexts by carefully copying others — especially those we respect. That’s why foster kids are very similar to their foster parents. It is not genetics. We are very similar to the people we spend the most time with.

Adults usually spend their days working on things they don’t like. It is hard to have fun and a smile while doing what you don’t like. As they got home, they may smile when they see their children, but that doesn’t last long. They are tired, and they want to watch Netflix on the couch.

Kids like to play. Kids want to have fun. They don’t understand yet what is the life of an adult. As they try to keep having joyful moments, their parents usually cut their wings. Calm down. Slow down.

Kids think that it is wrong what they are doing, and that’s why they start to smile less. It is inappropriate to have that much fun. They imitate their parents that don’t smile that often. That’s how the real world should be. But should it actually be?

The facial feedback hypothesis, rooted in Charles Darwin and William James’s conjectures, is that one’s facial expression directly affects their emotional experience. Specifically, physiological activation of the facial regions associated with specific emotions immediately involves the elicitation of such emotional states. The lack of or inhibition of facial activation will result in the suppression (or absence altogether) of corresponding emotional states.

Nearly a century later, a review article concluded that empirical evidence for the facial feedback hypothesis was inconclusive and suffered from methodological problems. Strack, Martin, and Stepper invented the pen in–mouth-paradigm to overcome these limitations of prior studies. In this paradigm, researchers instructed participants to hold a pen with the teeth, as it is supposed to activate the muscles involved in smiling. The study concluded that inducing smiling by holding a pen with teeth may cause amusement and amplify the world’s joyfulness.

People copy their leader

“Be the change you want to see in the world.” — Mahatma Gandhi

It is eight degrees Celsius outside (or 53 degrees Fahrenheit), and I put on my black Adidas jacket to go to my fasted cardio. I update my instrumental playlist on Spotify and choose a piece of random music to play. I walk through a view of different contemporary architecture and tall trees with colored flowers. As I get closer to one of the many buildings, I noticed a man sweeping the sidewalk with a severe face. As I pass by, I say “good morning,” carrying a smile on my face. The man changes his facial expression and replies with a happy look.

Daniel Goleman, the author of Emotion Intelligence, says that the factor that has the most significant influence on a company’s performance is the mood of the leader. The emotional intelligence of executives — self-knowledge, empathy, connection with others — has clear links to their own performance. However, new research shows that a leader’s emotional style also influences the rest of the company’s mood and behavior — through a neurological process called mood contagion.

Emotional intelligence runs through the organization as electricity runs through the wires. Depressed and rude bosses create toxic organizations, full of underutilized elements and oozing negativity. But if you are an optimistic and inspiring leader, you will end up cultivating positive employees who embrace and overcome even the most difficult challenges. When the leader is happy, the people around him see everything in a more positive light. However, emotional leadership is not just about putting on a mask of joy every day. It involves understanding the impact you have on others — and adjusting your style accordingly. A complicated process of self-discovery — but essential before leadership responsibilities can be tackled.

When you smile, dopamine and serotonin are released. These chemicals help relax your body, but also can lower your heart rate and blood pressure. Seratonin specifically acts as an anti-depressant. Endorphins are also released, and they act as natural pain relievers. All of this can improve your productivity and how you enjoy the world around you.

Why don’t we promote more fun at work?

The billionaire Warren Buffet said that he did a course during his twenties that changed his life. It was a public speaking course from Dale Carnegie, the author of How to win friends and influence people. I did this course in 2014, and it was one of the turning points I had in my life. Besides public speaking, it taught me how to stop worrying about unnecessary things. Worrying is a severe threat to our physical and mental health. It can cause us heavy stress and crippling anxiety, ruin our ability to concentrate on essential tasks, and cause painful emotional issues.

I was a very stressed person before the course. That changed.

I also presume that you don’t want stressed people working with you.

The course also talked about smiling. There is an entire chapter devoted to that in one of the author’s books. Smiling can help you build rapport with strangers, break down barriers with people you may be interacting with for the first time, or even give a bit of inspiration or hope to that person who is not feeling her best that day and manages to see you.

Everyone new employee feels lost at first. However, if you have an onboarding process (I hope you do) where the more experienced person is smiling while telling how the company works, the new employee will feel better quickly. Now, imagine a person with a severe attitude with no smile welcoming the same new employee. How do you think she would feel?

Do you prefer to be around a joyful or a serious person?

Final thoughts

I like to make jokes with my friends, and I took this to my gaming company. I made jokes at every opportunity I had. However, that doesn’t mean I was irresponsible or unproductive. It is essential to know when to be serious and when to have fun. By making jokes, I gave the example that it was ok to have fun in my company. I wanted people to enjoy what they were working on so they can be more productive. You don’t need to be serious all the time.

The workplace can be a much better environment if we smile more. A smile can be something contagious, and it is something easy to put on. When you see a baby or a kid smiling the next time, remember that you used to be like that. You can put a smile on your face again, have fun, and influence your company’s performance for the better.

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