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Leaving Room to Say Things Suck — Leadership Lessons from “Ted Lasso”
A major sign of trust, comfortability, and vulnerability is for someone you lead to be able to say something sucks.
In Season 2 Episode 2, Coach Lasso is confronted with a disgruntled team. Twitter (which we know Coach Lasso isn’t fond of) was ablaze after pictures of he and Jamie Tartt at a bar surfaced. Without context, the team assumed Coach Lasso was bringing the former AFC Richmond diva back and were angry because of it. During an “extra spicy” practice, Lasso halts everyone and we get to this exchange with Sam Obisanya.
EXT. Pitch
Ted: I’m just tryin’ to help the team here.
Sam (walking off the pitch): Bullsh*t
Ted: Okay. (to the other coaches as he follows Sam off) Um, I’m gonna see what this is all about right here.
Ted: Hey. Sam! Slow down. Hey, you got something you wanna talk about?
Sam: No.
Ted: Really? It seems like you got something on your mind. Something like “I’m angry about a mysterious thing so I’m gonna do some cussing now.”
Sam: I mean, I am angry. And I did cuss, and every time I do, I regret it.
Ted: ’Cause people say cuss words when they don’t know the right ones to use to…
