Laughing Leadership

A woman wearing glasses and a suit is smiling in front of a flag.

Sim Loh is a family partnership coordinator at Children’s Village, a nationally-accredited Keystone 4 STARS early learning and school-age enrichment program in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, serving about 350 children. She supports children and families, including non-English speaking families of immigrant status, by ensuring equitable access to education, health, employment, and legal information and resources on a day-to-day basis. She is a member of the Children First Racial Equity Early Childhood Education Provider Council, a community member representative of Philadelphia School District Multilingual Advisory Council, and a board member of Historic Philadelphia.

Sim explains, “I ensure families know their rights and educate them on ways to speak up for themselves and request for interpretation/translation services. I share families’ stories and experiences with legislators and decision-makers so that their needs are understood. Attending Leadership Connections will help me strengthen and grow my skills in all domains by interacting with and hearing from experienced leaders in different positions. With newly acquired skills, I seek to learn about the systems level while paying close attention to the accessibility and barriers of different systems and resources and their impacts on young children and their families.”

“When people are able to find their sense of play at work, they become truly powerful figures.”

—Stuart Brown

Who makes you laugh? Really laugh. Belly-laugh. Double-over-laughing laugh. Laugh-until-you-cry laugh?

Could you use a dose of that person right now? I could. Anyone who helps me laugh, especially at myself, gets a pass to my inner circle.

Laughter is healing and relieving. As I laugh at myself, I take myself less seriously. As I lighten up, people around me shed their uptightness. Leaders who laugh light up the room, uplift their employees, and bring a soothing breeze of perspective.

Who makes me laugh? Children, of course, and how they see their world: “Look, Ms. Holly, I have TWO yummy boogers.” Dogs make me laugh. My yellow lab, Toby Grapelli, looks me in the eye as if to say: “Play? Ready? Outside? Ball? Now?” How can I refuse? I make me laugh. When I hear myself singing out of key, in my “what the hey” way, I laugh.

Laughter is a way of getting at the truth. As we ease up, we see more. As we let go of trying to control the outcomes, we open to new approaches. Have you had one of those reflective supervision moments when you realized you are learning more from the teacher than she is from you? I have. Gotta laugh!

Robin Williams makes me laugh. Rock on with your vacuum, Mrs. Doubtfire! The fact that Robin isn’t with us today, except on screen, reveals another reality: Without humor, we take ourselves dead seriously. We fail to thrive. Our spirits plummet. Without laughter, our work becomes tedium.

Leaders especially need to laugh. Our team takes the cue from us: Laugh, live, and learn. So, what makes laughter so healing? The simple answer is laughter releases endorphins and is less fattening than chocolate. The deeper answer is: Laughter is a key to our brain’s executive function, the part of us that keeps our eyes on the prize while under pressure.

Laughter is a tool of the emotionally intelligent leader. Humor helps us call upon our strengths and forgive ourselves for our shortcomings.

Let’s make this practical: What’s pushing your buttons today? We leaders need to know our triggers. According to Daniel Goleman, the most common workplace triggers include disrespect, not being heard, and being overwhelmed.

If you haven’t met the perpetually late staff member who chirps: “Just change my start time to an hour later and I’ll get here on time,” you will. When she still arrives late, her behavior is disrespectful of the children, other staff, and you. Knowing what pushes our buttons and what restores our perspective—that’s an invaluable leadership competency. We don’t have to make the same mistake twice.

Our adult brain is hard wired for survival, to protect ourselves from threat. It’s also hard wired to regain perspective. Laughter is one of many accessible pathways to perspective.

As leaders, we dance midway between two main functions of our brain–our on-alert brain that scans for danger (the amygdala) and our reflective brain (pre-frontal cortex) that seeks professional solutions. The fact that our pre-frontal cortex is called our executive function is no accident. After all, what distinguishes an executive? Her ability to be fair, informed, see the big picture, foster change for the better, and not take things personally. These are the gifts of our executive function. The challenge is not to sacrifice the gifts to the adrenalin rush of an amygdala hijack (perceived threat that robs us of the ability to “think straight”).

The amygdala is fear’s ally. It scans our environment for danger, alerts us of threats, and causes adrenalin or cortisol to spurt through our veins. The amygdala invigorates us to fight back or escape the threat through flight or freezing in place. The amygdala is connected to our autonomic system, the knee-jerk reaction part of ourselves that takes over before we can literally “stop to think.”

When the fear-based amygdala takes over, we are all about survival. Heart pounding, short of breath, defensive, we become reactors not initiators. Simply stated, the amygdala is no laughing matter.

Laughter is the passkey to our executive function. Our executive function allows us to look up, regain perspective, resolve problems, be generous, keep our eyes on the prize, and be open to possibilities.
Fear is the adversary of the executive function. Fear stops children and us from taking risks to grow. Fear addles our ability be optimistic. Fear is a dream-killer.

We support children’s developing pathways to their executive function every time we help them pick themselves up, make a new friend, try a new activity, stretch beyond their fears. According to Louis Cozolino, the more we respond with our executive function—choosing courage over fear—the more pathways we build to calm the amygdala. Decision-making becomes easier, and what used to get under our skin can no longer provoke us.

So, as leaders, how do we nurture and stay connected to the power and resilience of our executive function when our amygdala can sucker punch us in a heartbeat? Here are three tools:

Identify behaviors that push your buttons. Common ones are disrespect, entitlement, dishonesty.
Call upon practices that restore your perspective. Pray, take a deep breath, count to ten backwards, recite a favorite quote, picture the difficult person in her underwear (Lucille Ball’s approach), find humor in the moment.
WAIT (Ask “Why Am I Talking?”). Respond only when you have reclaimed your professional self. In most cases, try saying: “Let’s take a break. When we meet next, let’s both come with solutions and not just the problem.”

Our brain can build healing pathways directly from the pre-frontal cortex to the amygdala. Fear can be replaced by strategizing. Self-doubt can be replaced by reflection. Anger can be transformed to positive action. Even sadness can turn into wisdom. Our executive function can calm down the amygdala like a teacher can comfort child about to melt down.

By calling on any of these tools, we activate the executive function. We connect to it. Once we light that spark, our brain is ready to enlighten us. Just as the amygdala protects us, the pre-frontal cortex uplifts us.

When people find their sense of play at work, they become truly powerful figures. Laughter is the easiest way to play. Laughter can alert your pre-frontal cortex that you need help. Laughter can distract the amygdala, giving you time to recover your professionalism. Laughter thaws a frozen team. Laughter heals woundedness.

My wish for you as a leader: Nurture yourself. Be kind to yourself. Take it easy on yourself. Play. And when it comes to laughter? Don’t leave home without it.

For a more complete look at lightening up on ourselves, take a look at my brand new book, The Comfort of Little Things: An Educator’s Guide to Second Chances.

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Examining the Role of Employer Benefits and Turnover in Center-based Child Care

By Robyn Kelton, M.A. • June 27, 2025

INTRODUCTION Turnover rates in child care are among the highest in education, with over 160,000 workforce openings predicted annually (Bassok et al., 2014; Doromal et al., 2022; Joughin, 2021; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025). While some turnover is expected and even necessary, the levels of turnover experienced in the field of early childhood education and care (ECEC) are not only alarmingly high but deeply problematic. In 2021, a national survey conducted by the National Association for the Education of Young Children found that over 80% of child care centers were experiencing a staffing shortage, with the majority of those programs reporting one-to-five open roles, but 15% reporting between six and 15 open roles (NAEYC, 2021). Staffing shortages result in lost revenue, financial uncertainty, and program instability, often forcing administrators to operate below capacity and/or under reduced hours (NAEYC, 2021; NAEYC, 2024; Zero to Three, 2024). Limited enrollment slots and classroom and program closures lead to increased waiting lists (Zero to Three, 2024; Carrazana, 2023). In turn, families are placed in a highly vulnerable position of needing to leave the workforce to stay home with their child or turn to potentially unsafe or unregulated child care. Moreover, increased turnover in classrooms interrupts continuity of care and disrupts the relationships built between children and their educators (Reidt-Parker, J., & Chainski, M. J. (2015). Research has begun to highlight some of the programmatic and personnel characteristics predictive of increased staff turnover in ECEC programs. Low wages are most commonly identified as a strong predictor of turnover (Amadon et al., 2023; Bryant et al., 2023; Fee, 2024; Guevara, 2022; Totenhagen et al., 2016). However, workforce advocates and some researchers have begun to expand conversations on compensation to explore the impact the profession’s general lack of benefits such as paid time off, access to health insurance, and retirement benefits has on retention (e.g., Amadon et al., 2023; Bryant et al., 2023; Fee, 2024; Lucas, 2023). While informative, this body of work has typically approached benefits as binary variables (i.e., have or do not have) rather than reflect the spectrum on which benefits are commonly offered (e.g., the number of days off, the percent of insurance covered by the employer, and levels of retirement matching funds). This Research Note aims to expand on previous work investigating the relationship between benefits and turnover by exploring the possibility of a more nuanced relationship between the variables to determine if the level of benefits offered impacts turnover rates. METHOD This study used data collected via formal Program Administration Scale, 3rd Edition (PAS-3) assessments conducted by Certified PAS-3 Assessors between 2023 and 2025. To become certified, PAS-3 assessors must first achieve reliability (a score of at least 86%) on a test conducted after four days of training on the tool. Next, they must conduct two PAS assessments within three months of reliability training. PAS-3 national anchors reviewed the completed assessments for consistency, accuracy, and completeness. The study analyzed data from 133 PAS-3 assessments collected during the certification process across 12 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Mariana Islands. Measures Data for this study were collected using the PAS-3, a valid and reliable tool used to measure and improve Whole Leadership practices in center-based programs (Talan, Bella, Jorde Bloom, 2022). The PAS-3 includes 25 items, each composed of 2-5 indicator strands and scored on a 7-point Likert scale (1 = inadequate, 3 = minimal, 5 = good, and 7 = excellent). Item scores are averaged to determine a mean PAS-3 score. Of particular interest to this study is Item 5: Benefits. Item 5 measures employee access to health insurance and considers what percentage of the cost is paid by the employer, the total number of paid time off days within the first and fifth years of employment, access to a retirement plan, and the percentage at which the employer will match the employee’s contribution. Last, Item 5 explores provisions made to cover the costs of staff’s professional development. Non-applicable is allowed as a response for indicators related to health insurance and retirement if there are no full-time staff employed by the program. Sample Program enrollment ranged in size from four children to 285, with a mean enrollment of 65 and a median of 55. Total program staff for the sample ranged from two to 44 staff, with an average of just under 14 staff (13.93) and a standard deviation of 8.80. Table 1 below provides a detailed breakdown of staff by role and full-time and part-time status.