The Best You - A Coaching Podcast: Personal Growth Through Real Conversations · Gary Gillan

Why Humour Matters in Leadership: Your Essential Tool for Personal Growth and Connection with Karyn Buxman

·49 min·3 clips

Karen says humor's payoff is not laughs per minute, but relationship quality and human well-being.

1. The Best You interview with Karen Buxman focuses on why humor matters in leadership, coaching, and personal growth. 2. Gary Gillen introduces Karen Buxman as a speaker, author, neurohumorist, transformationalist, founder of The Human Lab, and one of 65 women in the Worldwide Speaker Hall of Fame. 3. The episode asks what humor is for when it is used beyond entertainment, and Karen answers with three purposes: influence and well-being alongside laughter. 4. Karen says she began studying humor while finishing a master's degree at a small university school of nursing. 5. She recalls instructors telling her humor was 'not professional enough,' 'not serious enough,' and 'too vague' before she pursued the topic anyway. 6. Karen says her work 'snowballed' after people asked her to share her findings, and she chose speaking over teaching within a year. 7. Gary connects the topic to ICF Converge in October 2025, where a packed session called 'Coach with Levity' drew standing-room-only attendance. 8. Gary says he uses humor in stress, trouble, and teaching, and he models presentation style on teachers who made classes engaging rather than dry. 9. Karen says some people resist humor because they fear not being taken seriously, offending someone, or lacking humor themselves. 10. She says coaches do not need to be funny in order to use humor for influence, well-being, and leadership. 11. Karen says the common mistake is treating humor as only entertainment and measuring it by whether someone laughs. 12. She says humor can work 'without laughter,' and laughter can happen 'without humor.' 13. Gary describes humor as a way to create connection before serious conversations, including difficult workplace discussions and project handoffs. 14. Karen says strong rapport creates 'trust equity,' which changes how much room there is for a misjudged joke. 15. She says humor should be used with attention to context, authenticity, safety, timing, and distance. 16. Karen also says she teaches an eight-week course called 'The Missing Piece' for coaches, leaders, and people who listen for a living. 17. The conversation has an interview style with long, detailed answers, interruptions, and practical examples from classrooms, coaching sessions, and speaking work. 18. The energy is conversational and reflective, with Gary and Karen building on each other's examples rather than debating. 19. Coaches, managers, teachers, and presenters interested in humor as a practical tool will get the most from this episode. 20. People wanting a short, joke-heavy comedy chat will probably skip it.

As heard by us

A clear case for humor as a practical tool for influence and connection.

Humor is treated here as more than a way to get a laugh. Gary Gillen and Karyn Buxman link it to coaching and business, where a well-timed bit of levity can help people persuade, motivate, inspire, educate, or negotiate.

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Why you'd press play

Use humor to lead without losing the room.

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