“The TV character Ted Lasso is a wonderful example of high-functioning leadership, and how it creates success in two important dimensions,” explains Heather Marasse, Managing Partner, Trilogy Effect. “He’s effective on the quantitative side in that he coaches his team to start winning games. He’s effective on the qualitative side too because everyone surrounding him becomes happier, emotionally healthier and more successful overall.”
In this episode of the Being Human is Good For Business podcast Heather Marasse and host Sherrilynne Starkie discuss the popular TV show Ted Lasso, winner of the 2021 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series. The show is an examination of humanity and holds many lessons for leaders.
Listen here:
Leadership Lessons from Ted Lasso
In this podcast you’ll learn that:
A great leader supports their team members’ personal and professional growth by letting them take the lead, while also providing a soft place to land should things go wrong.
Good leaders prioritize their relationships with people and bring emotional integrity to their interactions.
t’s impossible to overstate the importance of both humility and vulnerability in great leadership. Developing both are the key in leading teams to achieve amazing things.
Links to information and resources discussed in this show:
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Machine Generated Transcript
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Three Leadership Lessons from Ted Lasso
[00:00:00] Heather Marasse: Welcome to the being human is good for business podcast. In each episode, the leadership development experts at trilogy effect explore how the process of self-discovery unleashes potential in his own. Now here's your host;
[00:00:22] Sherrilynne: Sherrilynne Starkie . Hello. I'm Sherrilynne Starkie. Welcome to being. Human is good for business.
The podcast for business leaders who want to build high performance teams today, I'm joined by Heather morass, the managing partner of trilogy effect, the leadership development experts. Today's episode is all about Ted lasso and the leadership lessons. This critically acclaimed television series has for us in case you've not seen it yet.
Ted Lasso is an American college football coach. He's played by the actor. Jason Sudeikis. He's hired to coach an English soccer team. So when he first arrives in London, he doesn't know much about the game of soccer at all, but he soon winds over his skeptics with his folksy optimism. The show won the 2021 primetime Emmy award for outstanding comedy series.
But besides being very entertaining, Ted Lasso examines our humanity in such a way that it holds many lessons for leaders. And this is what Heather and I are discussing today. So let's talk about Ted lasso as a leader. How did, how did you discover the show?
[00:01:35] Heather Marasse: Well, I listened to a podcast one day of one of Brene Brown's podcast and she was interviewing Jason Sudeikis.
And she was going on about how much she loved Ted lasso. And I thought I've never even heard of this. So I found the series and I started watching and I was hooked within the first episode. Really. It was quite unique show.
[00:02:01] Sherrilynne: It is you and the rest of us. And I liked it so much because in England and I lived there for many years and I was the stuff that he does as an American living amongst them.
I was, I can definitely identify
[00:02:13] Heather Marasse: with. Yeah, I think that's one of the reasons it has been so popular is because it, it doesn't feel contrived. There was a certain undercurrent of humanity that to really get at it's there's a softness required, not a hardness to get at that essence of who people really are.
And even they really did a good job of that for every single character, every single one of them.
[00:02:42] Sherrilynne: Okay, let's start with Nathan. Then when Nathan is the, the junior guy, he looks after the equipment and Ted really focuses in on him and helps to build his confidence and unlock his potential.
[00:02:59] Heather Marasse: Yeah. So it's interesting.
You'd start there because of all the characters, he might be the one that people after the end of the second season, spoiler alert may not be so far. And I thought again, I thought the writing was very clever because if you really understand a little bit about being human, which most of us hopefully are working on, what you really got to see was what, what had hurt me.
So deeply, and, but in his childhood and his relationship with his father and at the end of the day, how he projected that hurt on to Ted who had become a father figure. And well, I wanted to hate this character for that. What I noticed was how compassionate Ted was received. Nate's rejection, which is pretty sophisticated line of maturation.
I'll call it in term in psychological terms. So it was a very interesting way to play that character out.
[00:04:12] Sherrilynne: Well, I think it's an interesting storyline for leaders because especially for young leaders, people are just new to leadership roles. Sometimes they're afraid to. Allow the people that they're managing and leading the opportunity to flourish because they're new at it themselves.
They feel maybe threatened if somebody turns out to be a real star and it might reflect on them not being the leader of the team or the best in the team or whatever they're aspiring to be. And I feel like the step, the subplot really typifies that. Ted says, okay, this guy, we're going to build him up.
We're going to give them some self-confidence we're going to let them an expression they use in England. Let him have his head, let him take leadership on things. And these are all things that great leaders do, but then it, it flipped some of them in the end. Right. Yeah. And how normal do you think that is for people who are learning to be leaders?
[00:05:13] Heather Marasse: It's probably not that abnormal again. I know we've talked about this before. We do hit a point in our career where if we're given our head and we get to a point where that, that starts becoming a bit of a bankrupt strategy, and that's what we see in Nate, Ted did give him his head and it worked to a certain point until Nate started believing his own press.
Quite literally. Yes. That is what gets him into trouble. And he hit a tipping point in his career where what got him here? Won't get you there. Yeah. And I think maybe season three, I hope might be the next chapter or it's really not a chapter. It's like, what do you call when there are several chapters in a part of a book and then it's section two.
I think this is going to be section, this will be. Aftermath of the first half of Nate's career is going to be the second part of it. And I'm sure that there's going to be redemption because of the way Ted related to the whole situation. Yes, yes. And so what that showed, I think, which really great leaders do is.
Absolutely. You see potential in people. You give them their head. You let them go. As far as their innate natural talents and abilities will take them and they will fall. And if you're a really great leader, you provide a place to land and you give them a hard truth about it, but you also equip them for reaching beyond.
What they thought they had to expand into who they really are. And that is what I think. It's possible for nature. I hope so. I can't wait to see the next season.
[00:07:00] Sherrilynne: I agree with you on some of the interviews that we've done so far on this podcast. Some of the things that our guests have described, it sounds like this career trajectory that Nathan is following right now.
So I'm very anxious to see what happens, how he's redeemed.
[00:07:17] Heather Marasse: Yeah. How he redeemed himself
[00:07:20] Sherrilynne: yes. And I think that's goes into the, the concept of your career is a long journey. Right. And, and you gotta play the long game and that's what Ted does. Sure. So when he first arrives in England, And you're like, how is this guy going to coach this team?
Like, he doesn't even know the game and, and they're the Losingest team in the league and it's completely dysfunctional. And so he walks in and, and fixes all that, but he knows it's not gonna fix it one day. Right. He looks at us as a season long journey.
[00:07:58] Heather Marasse: Yeah. And he looks at it. He plays a very relational strategy versus a transactional.
Yes, they're playing a game and it has transactions. Meaning you have to go and perform on the field every so often and see if we win or lose. And in the background, you see him totally focused on all the relationships required for those transactions to have an impact and for the transactions to ultimately gain momentum.
So he is not a transactional guy. He is.
[00:08:31] Sherrilynne: And he invest fully in these relationships, like biscuits with the boss. He he's baking those biscuits the whole season.
[00:08:43] Heather Marasse: Yeah. Yeah. And I love it that his boss, that the owner of the company is a woman. She's I love her character as well, Rebecca. Yeah. So let's
[00:08:54] Sherrilynne: talk about Ted Lasso and the importance of being self-aware as well.
He certainly admits when he's wrong. He's not, he doesn't have any ego around that. And he said I was wrong and he apologizes and, and gets on with it. And when he was hiding it, or I don't want to spoil the plot for people that there was some personal stuff about his own, his own life and his own health, that he was keeping very quiet from everybody.
But he saw that that was not helpful in the long run and apologize to
[00:09:28] Heather Marasse: people. I think one of the things that's so endearing and charming about coach Ted is his humility. It's very genuine. He just is there to support the players and coach them. And he has his own foibles and the game. It's not about him.
And like you said, when it got to a point where not revealing himself was getting in the way of the team, Performance and the team relationship to him, he realized that that was, he needed to share a little bit more so, and we see that a lot in our client systems where yeah. At a certain point, what you want from your leader, you definitely want them to see you and see your work and see the difference you're making.
See the value you provide. But there's also always, I want to know who my leader is. Hmm. I want to know about them. I want you to know who you really are. Who can I count on you to be for me, especially when the going gets tough and Ted does a marvelous job of demonstrating, riding that fine line, having it be all about his players, all about the game and realizing when I need to put more of myself in to this equation, even if it's going to hurt.
Even if I'm going to be vulnerable and expose some things, and I'm not that proud of, and I don't have all figured out.
[00:10:59] Sherrilynne: Yeah. I think that's an important, an important lesson for any leader to take away. Yeah. And it's the hardest thing to do right. When you're the boss and everyone's looking up to you and everyone's counting on you, it's difficult to allow yourself.
The ability just to relax a little bit and let your guard down and let people know that you're, you're scared as they are of whatever's happening. What Enneagram type do you think Ted lasso presents?
[00:11:34] Heather Marasse: I wonder about that. It's really hard. And we always provide the disclaimer, don't try and guess other people's types because they're the only ones who know what's going on on the inside.
That being said, of course, everybody who studies and works with the Enneagram probably does. But I would say I've been doing this for a long time. I think I get it about 50%. Okay. I don't, I don't trust my accuracy, but there are some clues. And for him, I would say he's probably a positive outlook type.
He's when things get tough, he, he remains positive as opposed to there are two other strategies that get used in the Enneagram types when things get tough, which one of them is competency. Focusing on getting more competent. And the third strategy is emotional realness or intensity. Let's get real unless you are willing to be emotionally real with me.
I'm not gonna, I can't deal. The reality is you need all three of those strategies to deal effectively in a tough situation. You need emotional realness. You need to sharpen up your pencil and get really competent on whatever's needed here. And you need to have a sense of positive. There there's a way through here.
There's some hope, but we tend to have a dominant one. I would say that Ted's dominant. One is positive outlook. So that would put him in either the type nine, the peacemaker or the type two, the helper or the type seven, the enthusiast then I think about, okay. So those are in each of the different centers, nine being in the belly center, two being in the heart center and the seven being in the head center.
So I maintain my positive outlook as a type nine so that I can maintain autonomy. That's what the belly center types want. I maintain my positive outlook as a type two, so that I can be seen as helpful. That's what happens in the heart center. And. If I'm a type seven, I maintain my positive outlook in order to feel a sense of security.
So when I think about Ted and what his positive outlook was ultimately striving towards, I don't know. What do you think? Was it autonomy? Was it being seen as helpful or was it being reaching for security? Striving for a sense of security? Wow. I don't think it was secure. I didn't get that sense from him.
[00:14:14] Sherrilynne: No, I don't get security either. That's the thing is I don't, I'm not sure about any of them.
[00:14:21] Heather Marasse: Well, and the fact that it's hard to tell is another example of high-functioning because the more, the less fixated we are in our ego structure, the healthier we actually are because our, our type is what shows up when we don't.
That's one of our teachers used to say, it's really, our type is patterning. It's a survival strategy and we run it. It runs us when we aren't feeling fully here at present. So the fact that Ted's a little hard to pin down in a type is also an indicator of he's a pretty high functioning human being at hence gets the outcome.
But he gets both on the quantitative side. Like his team actually made quite significant progress. And also on the qualitative side, like people are getting healthy around him. I mean, we could go on and on about this show. There's so many wonderful dimensions to leadership that get personified, both the dark and the light of it.
Do you want to
[00:15:28] Sherrilynne: talk about Nathan? No. Sorry, Roy. Would you be surprised to hear me confess that I didn't really like Roy,
so yeah, I would say he was probably my least favorite character.
[00:15:44] Heather Marasse: Is that right? Wow. It was one of my favorite ones. I guess what I appreciated about him was the vulnerability in that direction. And as his character developed more and more, you saw the soft underbelly that he was trying to hide and still angry about feeling, which just is that it's that cycle that locks the whole pattern in place.
I don't want to feel this vulnerable, so I'm going to be tough. And when I'm tough, I do think. I regret, which makes me feel vulnerable again. And I hate that feeling. So I'm going to toughen up again. It's just this, this loop that is self-reinforcing unfortunately. So
[00:16:30] Sherrilynne: now, you know, you can understand why I don't enjoy watching
[00:16:32] Heather Marasse: them.
Yeah, yeah. I can. And, and I thought he so many times demonstrated so beautifully. The undoing of it, of the structure. The undoing of this was not my intent, like with his niece, his little niece, again, don't want to spoil the whole thing, but there was a situation in the second series where he confronted very honestly, the unintended consequences of him being his gruff self and the impact it was having on her.
And he loved her so much that. We just did him in and he really took on the lesson from it. So again, that's one of the things I love about the Ted Lasso series. There's so much redemption. I like a series that shows the dark side and. What it takes, which isn't always all that much, except a bit of kindness, which is what Ted provides in spades to allow for the best of us to emerge.
And with every character you see that
[00:17:42] Sherrilynne: the show Ted lasso is all about redemption and how it takes a little kindness from a leader to allow their people to really flourish. Well, put Heather, and thank you for providing us with this expert analysis. It's food for thought for us all. And I'll be watching season three with a whole different perspective.
The takeaways for leaders from today's conversation are number one. A great leader supports people's personal and professional growth by letting them take the lead. And they also provide a soft place to land. Should things ever go wrong? Number two, good leaders prioritize the relationships with people and bring emotional integrity to all these relationships.
And number three, it's impossible to overstate the importance of both humility and vulnerability in great leadership. Developing both are key in leading teams to achieve amazing things. Please check the show notes for links, to information and resources about the issues and concepts Heather explained in today's show.
And please also make sure you never miss an episode of our podcast by subscribing. And if you have a second, please drop us a rating or review over on Apple Podcasts or whatever, whatever platform you get, your podcasts. We were really appreciated and it helps other people find our podcast. And if you like the show, please recommend it to
all your friends who want to become better,
stronger, more effective leaders.
I'm your host, Sherrilynne Starkie. And remember being human is good for business.