An article on Ted Lasso from this week's Marshall Memo

Ten Leadership Skills from Ted Lasso

????????????In one of her regular coaching letters, Connecticut educator Isobel Stevenson uses the developmental relationship framework to identify key leadership qualities exhibited by Ted Lasso as he coaches a British soccer team in the three-season Apple TV series that just wrapped up:

??????????????Express care. Lasso “is the very epitome of caring,” says Stevenson. “He is dependable, he listens, he makes people feel known and valued, he is warm, and he is encouraging” – including baking cookies for his boss every day and making sure the team celebrates a Nigerian player’s birthday when he’s feeling far from home.?

??????????????Challenge growth. Lasso pushes players’ performance in ways that are non-threatening and indirect, says Stevenson – for example, giving the book?A Wrinkle in Time?to the toughest, most macho member of the team, who proceeds to read it to his niece, apparently seeing the book’s message about taking on the mantle of leadership.

??????????????Provide support. “Ted is all about encouragement,” says Stevenson. He organizes an?ad hoc?support group called the Diamond Dogs that convenes when a teammate has a personal problem and tries to figure out a solution.?

??????????????Share power. Despite his natural talent as a leader, Lasso is not a soccer expert, so he’s strategic in calling upon the talents of his compadres, including a lowly kit-man who, it turns out, has exceptional talent as a coach.?

??????????????Expand possibilities. Lasso plays a part in encouraging and supporting the growth of every major character: his boss to get past her bitterness toward her ex-husband; her assistant to emerge from being a disrespected lackey to a strategic partner; the ditsy girlfriend of two players to start her own publicity company; and a talented but obnoxious player to provide more assists than goals and actually become likable.?

??????????????Embody self-efficacy?– Lasso encourages others, works for their success, and helps them move on from failures – including using the metaphor of a goldfish forgetting what it saw the last time it swam around the bowl.?

??????????????Be positive and optimistic?– Lasso’s “folksy upbeat ways manage to be hokey and authentic at the same time,” says Stevenson, “and this rubs off on the people around him.” But he’s not blind to the team’s problems, takes them seriously, and doesn’t engage in “toxic positivity.”

??????????????Nurture belonging?– Lasso makes everyone feel part of the team’s gradual and inexorable improvement, suppressing negativism and raising performance, well-being, and self-worth.

??????????????Use soft skills?– Lasso is formidable in this department, says Stevenson, “but he is not working to convince people that he likes them in order to make them feel good – or at least, not only that. His agreeableness, and his soft skills, are both means and ends.”?

??????????????Defy assumptions?– In a pivotal scene, Lasso outsmarts the show’s villain (his boss’s ex) by exploiting the man’s assumption that an American can’t possibly be good at darts. Lasso’s zinger: “Be curious, not judgmental.”

“What Ted Lasso Has to Teach Us About the Holding Environment”?by Isobel Stevenson, Coaching Letter 179, April 7, 2023, Partners for Educational Leadership; Stevenson can be reached at?[email protected]; summarized in Marshall Memo 989