Bringing Your Whole Self to Work: How Improv Builds Authentic Leadership and Culture
Patented Alex Lefeld Silly Face Circa 1996
Sometime 1996
The Class Clown Who Learned to Sit Still
All through school, I was the class clown. Silly voices, goofy faces, exaggerated body language. I couldn’t help myself. My classmates loved it. My teachers, not so much. I heard the same thing again and again: “Alex, stop acting up.”
Because I was so expressive, teachers often found ways to redirect my energy. I’d get assigned little jobs like cleaning the chalkboard, handing out papers, or running errands. It gave me a way to burn off energy and “be useful.” At the time it felt like a compromise. Looking back, it was also a message: my humor and creativity were distractions that needed to be managed.
School has a way of teaching us all that same lesson in different forms. Everyone is measured on the same scale with grades, tests, and behavior points. The system rewards kids who can toe the line, sit still, and stay quiet. The rest of us learn to shrink, to tuck parts of ourselves away so we don’t stick out too much.
So I learned to tone it down. Be quieter. Sit still. Save the silly voices for after class. Success, I thought, came from blending in, not standing out.
Culture Shapes Behavior at Work
That conditioning doesn’t magically disappear when you graduate. Most workplaces run on similar unspoken rules: don’t rock the boat, don’t stand out too much, keep it safe. And just like in school, the environment shapes how much of yourself you feel comfortable bringing in.
Which is why “bringing your whole self to work” is not just an individual act of bravery. It is a cultural choice. You can be the most authentic person in the world, but if the culture punishes vulnerability or quirks, you will learn quickly to pull back.
Stewart Butterfield, the co-founder of Slack, made this clear when he described why Slack put kindness and empathy at the center of its values. It wasn’t a “nice to have.” It was a design principle. The reason was simple. When people feel safe to be themselves, they communicate better and collaborate more. Culture either makes space for your whole self, or it shuts it down.
That hit home for me years later. In school, the system rewarded kids who blended in and penalized kids who stuck out. In workplaces, I have seen the same thing. People keep parts of themselves hidden because they don’t feel like there is room for them. And the cost is huge, not just personally, but for the team that misses out on all that creativity and perspective.
Discovering Improv: The Power of Bringing Your Whole Self
I felt that tension myself. School taught me to shrink. Interpretive arts cracked the door open. And then improv blew it wide open.
In my first interpretive arts class, the very things I had been told to shrink became the things I was asked to amplify. Suddenly those silly voices weren’t disruptive, they were character choices. My funny body language wasn’t “acting up,” it was storytelling. For the first time, what felt “too much” about me was celebrated as a strength.
That moment gave me the courage to major in theatre in college. Finally, I felt like I could bring my whole self to the work I was doing. But even in theatre, I noticed limits. Scripts and characters came with “right” and “wrong” ways to perform them. I could stretch, but only so far.
I’ll never forget auditioning for my first college musical. I leaned into what I knew best: sound effects, silly voices, and a comedic flow that felt like me. I walked away proud. When the cast list came out, my name wasn’t on it. The director pulled me aside and said I had done well, but I wasn’t the right fit. Then he handed me a stack of resources on “Theatre of the Absurd.” I walked away wondering: Where was I going to find my place?
That question was answered when I discovered improv. My first class felt like someone had ripped the lid off. Suddenly, everything that had once gotten me in trouble, being loud, goofy, spontaneous, was welcomed. I even traveled to Chicago for an intensive at Second City, the mecca of improv. That trip cemented it for me. Improv was where I belonged. It demanded that I bring my quirks, my instincts, even my mistakes, and it required me to trust my partners to do the same. For the first time, I felt what it truly meant to bring my whole self into a room.
Rejection, Fishbowl Improv, and Finding Authenticity
At Ohio State, there was only one improv group, and they did long form. I auditioned and didn’t make the cut. At first, it stung.
Not long after, another student (let’s just call him Darius, because that was his actual name) who also hadn’t made it reached out with an idea: what if we started our own troupe? I jumped at it. Along with a few others, we launched Fishbowl Improv. From the beginning, we leaned into short form, the fast, high-energy games that had hooked me in the first place.
In some ways, Fishbowl was the first space since grade school where being the class clown wasn’t something to shrink down. It was something to lean into and build a stage around. And when tryouts came, the six of us could have just picked people who mirrored our style. Instead, we brought in people who were different, with different humor, different styles, and different voices. Every time a new member added their quirks, the group got stronger.
Mike Robbins, in Bring Your Whole Self to Work, says authenticity is what creates trust and belonging on teams. I didn’t have that language yet, but I was living it. The more people brought their real selves, the better our scenes got.
Looking back, those tryouts taught me something about leadership. The goal wasn’t to mold everyone into the same shape. It was to build a space where people felt safe to be themselves, and where that authenticity made the whole group better.
The Hard Part: Authenticity and Radical Candor in Teams
Authenticity helped Fishbowl thrive, but it wasn’t enough on its own. We also had to learn how to be honest with each other, and that wasn’t always smooth.
I had been voted President of the group so we could be recognized as an official campus organization. I was also the only one who had trained at a professional improv theatre at that time, so I had a lot to share with the group, so it made sense. I appreciated the role, but it also gave me a responsibility and authority I wasn’t totally prepared for as a junior in college at 20 or 21 years old.
One of the toughest moments came when a member decided she wanted to audition again for the other improv troupe, the one that had originally rejected her. I took it personally. To me, it felt like she was saying Fishbowl wasn’t good enough. It sparked some tough, heated conversations.
Others wanted us to experiment with long form improv. I pushed back because I didn’t want to rub the other group the wrong way. My goal wasn’t to compete with them. It was to build a holistic comedy community at Ohio State.
The irony wasn’t lost on me. As a kid, I had gotten in trouble for blurting out too much, for being “too much.” Now I was on the other end, trying to figure out how to challenge directly without steamrolling people. The same energy that once got me sent to clean the chalkboard was now something I had to learn how to channel.
Looking back, those moments were my crash course in what Kim Scott calls Radical Candor, caring personally and challenging directly. I didn’t always get it right. My relationship with her was fractured, and I’m not sure it ever got resolved.
But there was an upside. Because we stuck with short form and kept our relationship with the other troupe friendly, an opportunity came our way. They were contacted by Adult Swim and a media company to promote a local block party. They couldn’t do it, so they passed it to us. Suddenly Fishbowl was on the stage, making money, and working with one of the top comedy media brands in the country. Not a bad name to be attached to.
It was a reminder that authenticity and candor don’t always make things smooth. But staying true to who you are, and choosing contribution over competition, can open doors you never imagined.
My First Job: From Know-It-All to Multiplier Leadership
After graduation, I had two options: move to Chicago and chase improv, or stay in Ohio and propose. I chose to propose to the girl I had dated all through college. We met on day one. She was working at Ohio State, and I started looking for what was next.
I had worked in the restaurant at the hotel on campus, so I applied there. I thought it would be another hospitality job. But when I walked into the interview, I realized it was for a supervisor role. I had missed that in the posting. Instead of panicking, I improvised. I talked about leading my college improv team and being a resident advisor for two years. Both gave me real leadership experience.
I got the job. I learned fast and led by example, making sure every check-in was perfect and nailing my secret shopper calls. But in my first review I got hit with tough feedback. I was coming across as a know-it-all. That was never my intention. I thought doing everything right was leadership. But really, it was pulling me away from my team.
It was funny in a way. The class clown version of me had been “too much,” and now here I was over-correcting, being “too perfect.” Both versions missed the point.
Later I found the language for this in Liz Wiseman’s Multipliers. Leaders can either be Diminishers, who suck the energy out of people, or Multipliers, who bring out the best in others. I wasn’t trying to diminish anyone, but my “I’ll do it right” mindset had the same effect. My team wasn’t growing because I was focused on proving myself instead of creating space for them.
It was another crash course. Leadership isn’t about being the one who knows it all. It’s about multiplying the intelligence and creativity of the people around you. Improv had been teaching me that all along, but now I was learning it at work.
Shifting the Spotlight: Vulnerability in Leadership
After that review, I shifted my focus. Instead of proving I was the best, I focused on making our morning shift team the best it could be. I used the training guide we all got in orientation as a daily playbook. I only stepped in when I was needed, and I let the team make mistakes we could all learn from.
That’s improv in a nutshell. If you jump in to control the scene, it falls flat. The magic happens when you let your partners experiment, stumble, and surprise you. My morning team was no different. When they had ownership, the whole group got stronger.
For a long time, being the class clown meant I loved the spotlight. But this was the first time I found more joy in moving the spotlight to others. Watching my student workers get recognized felt better than any laugh or applause I had ever gotten.
And part of that growth was learning that vulnerability and challenge go hand in hand. Letting my team shine didn’t mean avoiding hard feedback. It meant giving it in a way that built trust instead of resentment. It meant creating a space where mistakes weren’t the end of the world, but also where standards still mattered.
I did end up being named Employee of the Month later in my career, but what I was most proud of was that five of my student workers were honored as Student Employee of the Month while I was their supervisor. That meant more to me than my own recognition. And it paid off for the hotel too. During my tenure, we were honored as a Four Star property and ranked as the number one hotel in Columbus. None of that happened because of me alone. It happened because the team succeeded together.
Sheryl Sandberg has written about this kind of leadership. Leaders don’t just drive results, they set the tone for how people show up. Leadership isn’t about being the smartest person in the room. It’s about admitting you don’t have all the answers, showing vulnerability, and creating space where others can shine.
For me, that lesson started at the front desk of a hotel. Leadership wasn’t about showing I could do every check-in perfectly. It was about building a culture where everyone felt safe enough to bring their best, quirks and all, and strong enough to be challenged when it made the team better.
When You Can’t Bring Your Whole Self to Work
After the hotel, I took a job at the College of Business. On paper, it looked like a natural next step. But early on I made one mistake, and from that point forward I was micromanaged.
I’ll never forget the moment it hit me. My manager sent me an email, then walked down the hall to verify that I got the email, and then proceeded to tell me out loud what the email already said. That was the new normal. Every move watched, every decision second-guessed.
I lasted nine months before I quit.
The contrast couldn’t have been sharper. At the hotel, I had grown into a leader who trusted my team and let them shine. At the College of Business, I was in a culture where trust vanished the moment something went wrong. It was the same feeling I had as a kid being told to sit down and be quiet, like the safest choice was to shrink.
That season reminded me of something I had been learning since the chalkboard days. No matter how much of yourself you want to bring, the culture around you decides whether you can. Culture can fuel authenticity, or it can choke it out. Even the most expressive class clown learns to go quiet if every move is judged.
Building Human-Centered Cultures With Improv
That experience was a turning point for me. It showed me what happens when trust disappears, and it clarified what I wanted to build.
When Katie and I started WitWorks, we made human-centered culture the centerpiece. We weren’t just creating improv workshops for fun. We were creating practice grounds for the kind of workplaces we wished we had.
Mike Robbins has written that authenticity is the single biggest driver of trust at work. He’s right. But authenticity doesn’t happen by accident. It happens when leaders set the tone. Sheryl Sandberg has said that leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence, and making that impact last even in your absence. That resonates with me because it is exactly what improv teaches. The best improvisers don’t dominate the scene. They make their partners look brilliant.
And of course, I don’t need to remind you of Amy Edmondson’s work on psychological safety, though I probably just did. Her research makes it clear: people don’t take risks, share ideas, or admit mistakes unless they feel safe to do so. Improv, at its best, is just psychological safety in motion.
At the foundation of all of this is something Stuart Brown reminds us in Play. Play isn’t a luxury. It is a biological drive as fundamental as sleep or nutrition. When play disappears, so does creativity, adaptability, and resilience. Improv taps into that same wiring. It gives adults permission to play again, not as an escape from work, but as the very thing that makes better work possible.
At WitWorks, we design workshops that create those conditions. A simple game like “Yes, And” teaches teams that quirks, instincts, and even half-formed ideas are welcome, because someone else will build on them. In a scene, every voice matters. In a workplace, the same rule applies. If leaders want people to show up fully, they have to create a stage where every contribution is met with curiosity, not criticism.
Because when people can play, when they can bring their whole selves, the work changes. Meetings have more energy. Collaboration sparks faster. Teams take more risks, share more ideas, and recover from mistakes quicker. And that’s Improv at Work.
Key Takeaways: Bringing Your Whole Self to Work With Improv
School teaches us to shrink, but work should do the opposite. Cultures that encourage authenticity get more creativity, trust, and collaboration.
Improv thrives on individuality. Scenes only work when everyone brings their quirks, instincts, and honest contributions.
Authenticity needs candor. Teams grow when they balance caring personally with challenging directly.
Leaders are Multipliers, not know-it-alls. Great leadership shines the spotlight on others and builds collective success.
Culture sets the stage. Without psychological safety, people won’t bring their whole selves no matter how brave they are.
Play is serious business. As Stuart Brown reminds us, play fuels resilience, adaptability, and better work.
The Call to Action: What Stage Are You Setting?
I think back often to that kid in the classroom, the one who was told to stop acting up. The one who got sent to clean the chalkboard so he could “be useful.” The one who learned to shrink to fit.
That same kid is now building a company to help workplaces do the opposite, to expand. To create cultures where quirks aren’t liabilities, they’re assets. Where mistakes aren’t career-enders, they’re lessons we can all learn from. Where people don’t have to check part of themselves at the door just to get through the day.
Here’s the truth. Bringing your whole self to work is never just about the individual. It is about the culture you step into. Leaders set that culture. They design the stage. They decide whether people feel like they need to shrink, or whether they can play full out.
Mike Robbins says authenticity drives trust. Sheryl Sandberg reminds us that leadership is about making others better. Stuart Brown shows us that play is a biological necessity, not a distraction. Put those together and you get something powerful: workplaces where people don’t just survive, they thrive.
So here’s my question for you. What part of yourself have you been shrinking? What would change if your workplace didn’t just tolerate it, but celebrated it? And if you’re a leader, what stage are you setting for your people?
