Six Unexpected Leadership Lessons I Found in Improv Theatre

About leading with yes, the beauty of mistakes and the art of making the other person look good

Antonia Horvath
Better Humans
Published in
8 min readMay 17, 2022

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‘This is wild. I’m not sure if I hate it or love it’. That was my state of mind after the very first time trying improv theatre. It was a Monday evening after work with 12 strangers in a theatre in central London.

After two years of socialising too little during the pandemic, I thought Improv would be great to connect with my fun, creative and resourceful social self around others.

Over time, the strangers from my group turned into trusted partners. Monday evening improv quickly became the highlight of my week. It made me feel alive. I loved playing with my first impulse. Being bold, ridiculous, illogical.

Improv is highly collaborative. It has a couple of key concepts that make it work. I didn’t expect it, but those concepts taught me a great deal about leadership and collaboration at work, too. I guess you find advice where you least expect it, right?

Six unexpected leadership lessons

1. Listen as if your life depended on it

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You think you’re a good listener? I thought I was. I’ve conducted a lot of user research and have recently invested in enhancing my active listening skills as a manager.

I dare you to think back to your last heated work discussion. Did you truly listen to every word others said until the very end of the sentence? Or did you secretly plan your response? Yeah… I’m totally guilty here.

The first exercise we did in the improv class was ‘life story’: in pairs, telling each other our life stories, and then presenting the other person’s story back to the group. Each person got 1 minute, and then we swapped. Coming back into the larger group, we had to introduce the other person’s story as detailed as we possibly could.

A more physical listening exercise that I loved was ‘mirroring’: Silently, one person plays a scene. Doing something, somewhere. Like mixing a cocktail at a bar. Another person has to mirror what they’re doing. When mastered, the audience cannot tell who’s mirroring and who’s leading.

Listening is the basis of improv. People give each other offers, opportunities to jump on the game and spin it further together.

Active listening and creating an environment where people feel safe to share will offer the perspectives necessary for your organisation to compete in today’s business world. Foster psychological safety at work. Learn how to observe. Find and deliver constructive feedback as well as praise. Have regular 1:1s and retrospectives.

2. Lead with yes

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Another improv rule that helps the story unfold. You agree with and embrace the underlying reality presented by the person you’re playing with. And you’re adding to it by providing more context to the situation.

The following exercises helped me better understand what leading with yes feels like and how dissatisfying it is to be blocked:

‘Blocking’: You enthusiastically present your pair with a suggestion. Say, “Let’s go climb that tree”. The other person blocks your suggestion and suggests something unrelated instead. For example by saying: “No. How about we go to the beach instead?”

We instantly lost any positive momentum.

In contrast: ‘accept and build’. You’re again suggesting something. The other person now enthusiastically answers “Hell yes!” And adds more detail to your suggestion to make it even better.

That’s when the magic unfolds.

Not many people are in the position to take all the decisions at work. You need the capability to accept and build. It’s an electrifying power learning how to ‘lead with yes’ and help shape a suggestion into something feasible.

Even for day-to-day collaboration: don’t block. Think back to a time when you’ve suggested something unconventional and a team member — or worse — your manager shut you down. Feels horrible, doesn’t it? Don’t be that person. Instead, carefully find a way to help the other person channel their drive onto something more closely aligned with what your team needs.

To clarify: I’m not suggesting ditching your boundaries! Don’t let other people take advantage of you, don’t take any shit. Set clear rules and call out when someone oversteps. But within this playing field: don’t block. Lead with yes.

3. Establish context and add perspective

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When you’re improvising, you’ll want to establish context while playing. Who are you? What’s everyone’s name? What relationship do you have with each other? Where are you and what are you doing? Every improviser is responsible for putting together the scene by adding context.

This part I love because it maps to how you approach any good decision-making meeting at work: You tailor the context and level of detail to the audience. You facilitate collective decision making by painting a conclusive picture of evidence.

Be the person that adds something their colleagues haven’t thought of, an original perspective, a fresh insight that helps the team to move forward.

4. Embrace making mistakes

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You’ll make a lot of mistakes and that’s beautiful because it doesn’t matter in improv. You’re not being evaluated. Your fellow improvisers will jump on your train regardless. Better yet: an unplanned, whole-hearted fuckup can be the most hilarious thing in a whole show.

One warm-up exercise I loved was walking through the room and telling every fellow improviser: “I’m going to make many mistakes today and I’m going to cherish them.”

Many other improv games are based on standing in a circle and creating patterns, like passing on claps to other people. More and more rules get introduced so that inevitably, you’ll drop the ball at some point. You then celebrate the moment and yell: “Yay, I failed!” and run one round around the group.

Actively seeking out the discomfort of failing constantly was one of the biggest stretches for me. I don’t like to fail. I don’t like to look ridiculous. I prepare and I deliver. Consistently. The many many mini failures during improv class helped me be more generous with myself.

With constant failure, came my confidence to recover. This helped me try more unconventional things at work — that might not be received well. I’m gradually losing my fear of retaliation. The most beautiful effect is that, by allowing myself to suggest more unconventional ideas, amongst many things that won’t work out, there is a chance for a big idea.

5. Make the other person look good

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Once you get to know your fellow improvisers a little, you’ll get to know their passions and strengths. Play to their strengths! Give them little gifts. Drop hints you know they’ll love.

For example, we had one fellow improviser who did an amazing job in leveraging her whole body in scenes. Like: getting hurt while dancing ballet or playing a reluctant toddler, refusing to get up. We learned how to set the scene for her strength.

If you focus on making the most of peoples’ strengths, it will help you and the rest of the performance.

This couldn’t be more true for work. You want to be the person lifting others up, getting to know them, learning about their goals, and subsequently providing them with opportunities. Call out other people’s great work. Be their cheer. More than anything, people will remember how you made them feel uplifted.

Be generous with constructive criticism in a way that brings your team forward. But beware! Don’t complain, don’t gossip, and don’t talk badly about others.

6. Own your body and voice

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Improv is great for getting to know who you can be. You’ll get to explore different characters, tones of voices, energies and scenes. I cherished the safe space to experiment with the power of my body and voice.

An activity that stood out to me here was: pretending to be different characters, for example, the bravest person you know. Or the most caring person you know.

Another great exercise: ‘leading’ a character with different body parts: nose first felt like a curious kid to me. Hips first felt like a lazy teenager, having to do household chores. Chest first felt like I’d just been promoted. And feet first felt like I’m a duchess in the 18th century, wandering the most beautiful English garden in the last sunlight of a warm summer day.

At work, you’ll want to be able to engage people when you say or do something. Your body is your greatest resource to do this: Powerful and open body language. Deliberate adjustment of your tone of voice. Occasionally doing something unexpected like being silent for a little too long are powerful techniques to captivate a room.

And now? Try improv!

I fell in love with improv theatre. It helped me connect with my fun, creative and resourceful social self around others. Anyone can join a beginner’s course. You don’t have to be funny or a good actor. If you’re London based, check out Hoopla’s beginners’ course. Want to try out some exercises in advance? Hoopla generously open-sourced their beginners’ improv exercises.

What surprising insights have your hobbies brought you that inspires your work? Find me on LinkedIn.

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A big thanks to Lisa Lynn, you’ve been the most fabulous improv teacher. Thanks to Charlotte, Maria, Anna, Patrick and Fade for becoming trusted improv partners, it’s a pleasure to perform with you! And thank you Wal Gedeon for your feedback on this article 💙

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Better Humans
Better Humans

Published in Better Humans

Better Humans is one of the largest and oldest Medium’s publications on self-improvement and personal development. Our goal is to bring you the world’s most helpful writing on human potential.

Antonia Horvath
Antonia Horvath

Written by Antonia Horvath

Antonia is a design & business leader, facilitator and problem-solver who helps organisations to innovate through digital products with amazing user experiences

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