Why Ted Lasso Is Advertising's Most Unlikely Leadership Coach

Image source: Shannon Knukle via Unsplash

Believe in Something Bigger

Like many other fans, I thought Ted Lasso had reached its natural conclusion.

Season three wrapped everything up rather beautifully. The characters had grown, Richmond had found its identity, and Ted had done what he'd set out to do. So when Season four arrives this week, you could be forgiven for wondering whether there's really the need for another chapter in the story.

I think there is.

Because beneath the biscuits with the boss, the banging one-liners and the wonderfully improbable premise of an American football coach managing a Premier League club, Ted Lasso remains one of the best studies of leadership in popular culture (stay with me, it really is).

Yes, it's exaggerated. Yes, it's wrapped in comedy. But that doesn't make the underlying behaviours any less true. If anything, it makes them easier to spot.

What always stood out was Ted's indestructible optimism. From day one, he had a remarkably simple vision: develop people, and better football would follow. Create a club where everyone mattered, from the boardroom to the boot room. Where winning was important, but never more important than the people trying to achieve it.

That's a rare thing to find in any company, and any industry - and advertising is no exception.

The Tyranny of the Short Term

Like many industries, advertising has become obsessed with things that are immediate and measurable.

This quarter's revenue. This year’s award entries. How many new followers on the Instagram or TikTok page this month. None of these things are inherently bad; in fact, they’re important for many reasons. But they're rarely the reason great agencies become great, and brilliant brands become brilliant.

Ted never seemed particularly interested in the league table after every match. He wasn't constantly rewriting his philosophy because one result hadn't gone his way. He understood that if he kept investing in people, relationships and culture, the performances would eventually follow.

We could probably learn something from that.

Fear Wears a Suit

The more I watched (and rewatched) the first three seasons of Ted Lasso, the more I realised the opposite of his optimistic leadership style isn't cynicism.

It's fear.

Fear quietly shapes things. It quietly shapes our industry every day, in common everyday decisions, choices and conversations. But it rarely introduces itself as fear. Instead it arrives dressed as sensible process, risk mitigation, or pragmatism.

It tells us to present three creative routes, even though everyone in the room secretly knows there's only one we truly believe in. It encourages us to soften the line before the legal department has even seen it, make the logo a little bigger before anyone's asked, or spoon-feed the audience just in case they don’t get the idea.

We've all done it. I certainly have.

This leads us to the importance of culture.

Culture Isn't Built at the Christmas Party

One of Ted's greatest strengths is that he understands culture isn't created through speeches, parties or benefits in kind.

It's built through repetition.

The rituals. The in-jokes. The conversations after training. The way he remembers people's lives outside football. The willingness to apologise when he gets something wrong. The humility to accept that good ideas might come from the kit man just as easily as the captain.

Those tiny interactions compound over time until trust becomes the operating system of the club.

Agency or brand culture shouldn’t really be any different.

We often talk about culture or agency vision as though it's something you unveil at an away day or write on the office wall. In reality, it's built on hundreds of ordinary Tuesdays. It's the feedback you give, and the way you give it. It’s the disagreements you encourage, the junior you ask for their opinion, and whether people feel safe enough to admit they don't know the answer.

The history of our industry sometimes propagates the idea that great work is the product of individual brilliance (“the man behind X, Y and Z campaigns”). The Messis and Ronaldos of advertising lore. But my experience is that it's the product of amazing teams: agency teams, all-agency teams, and client-agency teams… and teams who trust each other enough to be honest.

Lead with Courage, Not Certainty

Another thing Ted never pretends to be is the smartest person in the room.

He asks questions. He changes his mind. He admits when he's wrong. He's vulnerable enough to let other people lead in moments where they're better equipped.

In the corporate world, we're often guilty of confusing confidence with certainty. Leaders feel pressure to have every answer. To defend every opinion. To appear infallible. To double down, rather than regroup and reflect.

But certainty isn't what earns trust… courage does.

The courage to stand behind the creative idea the whole team believes in, instead of hiding behind three. The courage to challenge the loudest voice in the room. The courage to play devil’s advocate with a senior colleague or client. The courage to admit that there are other avenues worth exploring.

Ironically, those moments of vulnerability often build far more credibility in the long term than pretending to be right all the time to win that day’s argument.

Believe

Ted Lasso wants to win… but he never seems frightened of losing.

His decisions aren’t driven by avoiding failure. They’re driven by pursuing something worth believing in, and there's a freedom in that mindset. We become so preoccupied with not getting things wrong that we slowly stop doing the things that make our work memorable in the first place.

Perhaps that's why Ted resonates so strongly. Not because he coaches football, but because he reminds leaders that people matter more than process, culture matters more than charisma, and conviction matters more than certainty.

In the first three seasons we all found ourselves giggling at the quick wit and one liners, luxuriating in the rags-to-riches story arc, leaning into the individual characters’ journeys and growth, and being pleasantly surprised at the impossibly wholesome speeches … all despite the fact nobody at Richmond ever has to answer an urgent procurement email.

Beneath all of that is a leadership philosophy that's surprisingly difficult to argue with. Believe in believing.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to stick a yellow and blue BELIEVE sign above the Trouble Maker coffee machine.