Leadership Lessons from Lasso: An Organisational Psychology Perspective

If you’re unfamiliar with the show Ted Lasso (that took over pop culture during the pandemic and released its final season last year) you may think we have either lost our minds or have way too much time on our hands – why are we talking about leadership lessons from a TV show?!

For those who have watched it however, you’ll know that it was a surprising treasure-trove of inspiring leadership practices and ideas. And it certainly got our brains whirring! Here, Vicissitude consultants Madeleine and Susan walk us through the biggest lessons leaders from any sector can learn from the show – that’s right, it’s not just applicable to sport!

1.     Bring Vulnerability

One of the first things that stands out about Ted’s character is that he is not afraid to say something a little weird or kooky. Ted is just Ted, and this is what we call vulnerability. Brené Brown says that vulnerability is “having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome”. Ted is not afraid to share a story from his past that paints him in a less than heroic light. Most leaders avoid this, but at the end of the day it is our faults and frailties that connect us and the stories of victory or perfection that can cause us to compete.

To put this into the language and constructs we discuss in organisational psychology: vulnerability requires trust, trust creates psychological safety, and psychological safety encourages vulnerability. It’s a virtuous cycle in the sense that it feeds itself – once the process is started, it is self-reinforcing and organisations reap the benefits all throughout. What are the benefits of trust and psychological safety, I hear you ask? Well, just to name a few, we’ve got improved innovation as people are more willing to share their unique ideas, more energy and engagement because people feel like it’s safe to be themselves, and more effective collaboration and ‘teaming’ because relationships are deeper than the superficial exchange of work.

Building trust and psychological safety are two things we talk about A LOT in leadership workshops, but a common question we get is, “Where do we start?” and Ted Lasso neatly demonstrates the answer. Leaders. Go. First.

This isn’t to say that its always an easy or comfortable thing to do. As we see in throughout Season 2, Ted struggles to open up and be vulnerable with the team about his panic attacks and anxiety, actively concealing this from them for as long as possible. Ted Lasso shows leaders how to recover even from these moments, in the scene where Ted steps up to own his mistake and apologise for not being forthright with the team. He does this in a way that in itself shows vulnerability: taking accountability, owning his decision, and asking for forgiveness.

“Y’all found out about something from somewhere, when you should have found out about it from me first [...] Every choice is a chance, and I didn’t give myself the chance to build further trust with y’all”

If you’re a leader, have a go at stepping into vulnerability and doing something that requires you to trust your team. This could be talking about a mistake you’ve made and what can be learned from it, being willing to not have the answer, or sharing a unique idea that you’re not quite sure about. These behaviours make it okay for them to do the same in the future. And remember: When someone else takes a risk, encourage it by responding with gratitude and curiosity! In Ted’s words, “I don’t think we will do that, but I appreciate you.”

2.     BELIEVE

If you’ve watched any of the show at all, chances are you’ll be familiar with the central motif: THAT blue and yellow poster.

When Ted first becomes coach right at the start of Season 1, it would have been easy for him to spend time looking at all the things that were going wrong with the team and walk right back out again in despair. What he chose instead was to deliberately adopt a mindset of positivity and curiosity to see the best in everyone in the team – even the unlikable Jamie Tartt!

The thing is, positivity isn’t always an easy thing to foster and maintain. It takes a lot more nurturing than negativity because of the inherent biases we have in our neurobiology to spend time thinking about danger and threats. Research by Barbara Fredrickson suggests most of us experience about 3 negative thoughts to every 1 positive one we have. This certainly doesn’t seem to be the case for Ted, much to the benefit of the team!

It is possible to see the best in ourselves and each other if we remember to believe that it is there in all of us, even if it has been temporarily obscured by life events that don’t quite bring out the best in us. Some of the best character arcs in the show happen for people who start out a little rough, but with belief from Ted reveal themselves to have massive untapped potential (think Jamie, Nate, Roy, and even Rebecca!).

“I think it's the lack of hope that comes and gets you […] See, I believe in hope. I believe in belief.”

As leaders at work, it can be easy to get lost in the human messiness of people and their imperfection, but if we spent just a little more time looking at and tending to the strengths we see, we can better build a culture where everyone is contributing the best they can.

Everyone has something to offer that is of value – great leaders know how to find this through their unstinting belief in others.

3.     Adopt a Growth Mindset

Carol Dweck has done some excellent research on the effects of Growth Mindset in sport, finding that those who see themselves as a ‘work in progress’ are much more likely to sustain their performance and realise higher potential than those who see their skill as natural talent or view perfection as the be-all and end-all. Individuals with a growth mindset are likely to see failure as an opportunity to become an even better version of themselves, and therefore are more open to learning and improvement.

An example of Ted’s use of growth mindset occurs in Season 1, when Jamie’s implementation of Ted’s feedback (to pass more often) while playing for Manchester City resulted a Richmond loss, and the team being relegated. In response to this and despite the upsetting loss, Ted sends Jamie a note indicating how proud he was that he had grown and improved – forsaking the outcome in favour of focussing on growth. In the workplace, leaders can manifest this spirit by focussing less on whether or not a project/deliverable/outcome was perfect, and more on recognising and praising team member effort where they see it. This increases motivation to continue engaging in that helpful behaviour and to continue growing, meaning next time around that effort might just result in the desired outcome anyway!

Another example of growth mindset in action is during the team’s experience of relegation. At the beginning of Season 2, when Richmond is playing in a lower league (the Championship) they haven’t managed to win a match for seven consecutive games. While this challenge isn’t resolved for several episodes, the team battles to understand and overcome the issues that have led them to relegation in the first place. By the end of the season, they are playing better than ever before and are ready to re-enter the Premier League.

Ted Lasso shows us that it is in the deep reflection of a period of relegation that we can learn to grow into even better versions of ourselves. To adopt a growth mindset in our leadership practice, we can shift from wishing for relentless success, to seeing losses (or ‘failures’) as important opportunities to learn, regroup, and grow.

“Success is not about the wins and losses, it’s about each player being the best version of themselves on and off the field.”

Every team has low points, but with growth-oriented leadership, these experiences can become the launchpad for bigger and better things in the future.

4.     Use (the right kind of) Humour

Given the show is marketed as a “comedy-drama”, it’s probably not surprising that Ted is a fairly humorous fellow. His humour is, however, also a core part of his leadership identity, as he uses it throughout both the highs and lows of the series to bring people together and build relationships.

Extensive research over the past two decades has tried to understand more about the role humour plays in leadership, and unfortunately, it’s not a simple picture. This is because everyone does humour a little differently, and everyone receives humour a little differently! Thankfully there are a few consistent views that emerge, and some of these are demonstrated nicely in Ted Lasso.

Firstly, for humour to be successful, it must be authentic. People are pretty good at detecting when someone is trying a bit too hard or picking up on cues that show, “I feel a little uncomfortable here”, and this can be the accidental message we send if we try to use a humorous approach that doesn’t come naturally. Circling back to our earlier comments about being authentic and vulnerable, it is essential that leaders adopt this practice in their humour as well, or risk sending the message to others that it’s not okay to be yourself.

On the positive side, there is also research demonstrating that others don’t necessarily have to find your jokes funny for the humour to be effective as a leadership tool – good news if you’ve been holding back your humour out of fear that others won’t laugh. It’s time to let the dad-jokes rip (if it’s part of who you are)!

We see these two principles on display in the show as Ted continually rolls out his one-liners regardless of audience enjoyment – instead, he finds the jokes enjoyable in and of themselves. Think back to his relationship with the stony-faced Dr. Sharon Fieldstone (the team’s therapist) who rolled her eyes at many of Ted’s attempts at humour. We’ve included one such eye-roll worthy joke below:

“We’re gonna call this drill The Exorcist ’cause it’s all about controlling possession.”

Interestingly, the show also gives us a demonstration of where humour doesn’t work in leadership, in the form of Coach Nate. Nate’s main use of humour during his time as a football coach is to make fun of others. One example of this is during his press conferences where he tears down journalists and Ted Lasso alike – no surprises that this doesn’t seem to build trust and relatedness within the team, instead creating a culture of fear. This is definitely a form of humour leaders should avoid engaging in.

Final Thoughts

We’re not writing this blog to tell you that every leader should become a Ted Lasso.

Yes, many of the behaviours on display in the show give us an opportunity to reflect on what works, what doesn’t, and why that might be the case. But if there can only be one main takeaway from this thought-piece, we hope it is that your best leadership tool is being yourself and being authentic – not being Ted.

When we add onto that a sprinkling of light-hearted humour, a sense of belief, and a genuine interest in developing ourselves and our team we might just hit that perfect formulation.

If you’re interested in learning more about how to enact these leadership lessons in your team context, reach out! We’re always excited to talk more about these topics.

And if you’ve watched the show, tell us what your favourite leadership moment was?

Written by Madeleine Crawford and Susan Crawford

Photos sourced from Ted Lasso (2020-2023), Apple TV+