Cynthia Campbell, MBA, MEd, Founder – Soul Path Leadership – Hello@SoulPathLeadership.com
At some point in adulthood, most of us absorb a message that play is the opposite of work. The serious professional is composed, competent, and efficient. Play is for recess.
That message is costing us.
Burnout is rising. Engagement is dropping. Trust in leadership is low. And despite significant investments in leadership development, many organizations still struggle to build cultures of adaptability, collaboration, and real innovation.
We don’t have a knowledge gap. We have a connection gap.
What’s missing is practice. Not role-play. Not simulations. Actual practice in how to listen, adapt, stay present, and collaborate under pressure. Play, specifically improvisation, provides exactly that.
It’s not fluff. It’s functional. And it belongs in the room.
Adults Have Forgotten How to Play
Ask a roomful of professionals to do an improv warm-up and you’ll see something fascinating. Some people lean in with delight. Others cross their arms, deflect, or make jokes about being “too Type A” for it.
That resistance isn’t personal. It’s cultural.
We were taught early that play is something we grow out of. In adult life, we’re rewarded for control, speed, and certainty. Play threatens all of that. It disrupts hierarchy. It introduces risk. It’s unpolished.
And for many professionals, that’s terrifying.
But play is how humans learn. It’s how we develop adaptability, creativity, and trust. The irony is that these are the exact capacities businesses now demand from their leaders.
When play is missing, we get brittle teams and performative leadership. When it’s present, we get connection, curiosity, and resilience.
What the Research Says
Across disciplines, from neuroscience to organizational psychology, research confirms that play enhances adult functioning. It supports mental health, learning, and high-quality relationships.
A study by McFadden & Basting (2010) linked creative engagement in older adults to stronger brain health and social connection. Play, especially in music and movement, correlated with cognitive vitality and emotional well-being.
Forgeard (2025) found that adults who engaged in creative practices during adversity reported higher levels of post-traumatic growth. Creativity wasn’t a distraction. It was an adaptation.
Shen & Masek (2024) reviewed clinical literature and found that playfulness significantly enhanced therapeutic outcomes in adult populations. It improved interpersonal engagement, reduced stress, and made difficult emotions easier to process.
Improv takes these benefits and gives them structure. It trains people to stay present, listen deeply, and build trust, on their feet, with others, in real time. One the specific benefits that improv provides is practice in not knowing what is coming next – becoming uncomfortable in uncertainty. In today’s world this is an invaluable skill.
Why Improv Works
Improv isn’t about being funny. It’s about being flexible. It teaches people how to collaborate without a script, think on their feet, and respond to the unknown without shutting down.
The rules are simple:
- Say yes.
- Build on what’s offered.
- Stay in the moment.
- Support your partner.
Practiced consistently, these behaviors shift how teams function. They build psychological safety, reduce performance anxiety and increase group cohesion.
Multiple studies confirm this.
Perrmann-Graham et al. (2022) showed that improv exercises used in management education boosted trust and openness among participants.
Ármannsdóttir (2021) found that teams trained in improv tools improved communication, listening, and empathy—critical drivers of psychological safety.
Nordean (2020) demonstrated that improv training helped professionals collaborate more openly and admit uncertainty without fear of judgment.
In healthcare, Campbell (2014) applied improv training to cross-functional medical teams. Results included better communication and higher patient satisfaction. And when just 10% of a team completed the training, return on investment was already measurable.
Geerts (2024) and Bazinet (2024) extended this into business and education, showing that improv-based programs can deliver sustainable behavior change, improved creativity, and better leadership outcomes.
This isn’t theoretical. These are learnable, repeatable practices that drive real value.
The Culture Is Ready
Quiet quitting, disengagement, and burnout aren’t just HR issues. They’re cultural signals. People want work that feels more human, more connected, and more collaborative.
Traditional professionalism, polished, rigid, hierarchical, is cracking under pressure. What’s emerging is something different. It’s more relational. More adaptive. More honest.
That doesn’t mean throwing strategy out the window. It means building the emotional and relational capacity to navigate strategy with other humans.
Improv doesn’t solve every workplace challenge. But it offers a powerful, underused method for addressing the root of many of them: disconnection, rigidity, fear of failure, and the collapse of trust.
When leaders train in improvisation, they learn to respond rather than to react. They learn to listen instead of control. They become more effective not because they’re performing, but because they’re present.
Play isn’t a luxury. It’s a leadership imperative.
It strengthens what’s weak. It softens what’s rigid. It brings people back into relationship: with themselves, with each other, and with the work.
It’s time we stopped treating play as optional. It’s time to put it where it belongs: right at the center of how we grow leaders, build teams, and shape culture.
Ready to Bring Improv to Your Team?
If you’re exploring new ways to build trust, deepen presence, and foster real collaboration in your organization, let’s talk.
I work with leadership teams, conference organizers (think pre-con session), and mission-driven companies to integrate structured play and improvisation into the way they grow, learn, and lead.
Ready for something FUN and FRESH?
Reach me directly at Hello@soulpathleadership.com and let’s make leadership more human, one “Yes, And” at a time.