Ted Lasso Shows That Great Leadership Travels

I watch more sports than the average person but I don’t tend to watch sitcoms or dramas about sports; still, when everyone began talking about Ted Lasso, I found myself immediately drawn to the show. Sadly, as the third season concluded recently, it seems the show – and the many leadership lessons it teaches – is set for reruns.

Lasso is a fictional character who was a successful college football coach in the U.S. until he decided to challenge himself by assuming the head coaching job for a struggling English Premier League soccer team called AFC Richmond. Played by Jason Sudeikis, Lasso has a midwestern twang and plain-spoken way that contrasts with English soccer and its international stars, which is one of the consistently funny things about the series.

But what struck me immediately was the close resemblance Lasso bears to someone I grew to know quite well: UCLA’s legendary basketball coach John Wooden. I speak from a certain level of expertise on the topic, having once upon a time spent 12 years flying every other month from my home in Florida to Los Angeles for hours-long mentoring sessions with Wooden. The relationship changed my life and taught me how much practical and applicable wisdom could be taught by a great and wise coach who was, like Lasso’s character, also extremely good company.

One way you will know you are in the presence of a great leader is because they light up the space they occupy and, because they aren’t selfish or egocentric, they infuse others with their energy, purposefulness and generosity. Like Wooden, Lasso is both realistic and optimistic. They don’t sugarcoat challenges, but don’t second-guess themselves or those around them to the extent that others operate in fear or suspicion.

This optimism drives Lasso’s decision to pursue a challenge rather than settle for success, to move to a foreign culture and believe he can succeed because leadership is transportable across industries and professions as well as national and cultural boundaries. Leadership travels like a trusty and well-worn carryon whose every compartment holds something of value.

Optimism drives Lasso’s relationships with his team because he understands the first principle of leadership: as the leader goes, so goes the team. That’s why he doesn’t become frazzled by defeat and setbacks or exalted by wins. If the leader wants his team to act like they’ve been there before – “there” being the winner’s circle – the leader has to model the belief in the project. Better still, follow the proven concept of visualization and display a “Believe” banner in the locker/conference room as Lasso did on day one of his tenure.

Lasso’s optimism is fed by his growth and abundance mindset. In Lasso’s world, there is always ample opportunity to fail, learn from failure and succeed. And then to start all over again.

Richmond’s owner might have behaved cynically in choosing to hire Lasso at the beginning of the series – she hoped his lack of experience would ultimately torpedo the team in order to spite her ex-husband who once owned it – but Lasso’s empathy sets an entirely new tone, one that is literally transformative. For example, as the aging star Roy Kent, played by Brett Goldstein, fights against his reduced playing time brought on by the diminishment of his skills, his problems threaten to hold the team back. Lasso gives the frustrated and often belligerent Kent the room he needs to come to peace with a new role on the team as a mentor to the younger players. Eventually, he earns enough respect in this role to become one of Lasso’s coaches. It’s an extraordinary piece of “man management,” as they say in soccer, but also of empathy borne of Lasso’s own vulnerability, which he wears on his sleeve by referring to himself as “a work in prog-mess.”

Last but not least is Lasso’s lack of technical knowledge of the game, which many believed would be his downfall but proves relatively inconsequential. Why? Because Lasso has mastered another of the fundamental skills that great leaders exhibit: he surrounds himself with great people and empowers them to be their best.

Steve Jobs once said, “It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.” Lasso may speak in a more familiar tone, but he said pretty much the same thing when he admitted, “I know that I don’t have all the answers, but I got a room full of people who do.” The brilliance of this, something Coach Wooden, himself, would have appreciated, was that Lasso’s expression of humility is at one and the same time a standard and expectation he has set for his team.

And you don’t need to know what a bicycle kick is to accomplish that little hat-trick.