Low diatribe

Okay, that's a bit harsh. I shouldn't say that Ted was wrong, maybe just naive about several key points.

I really do love Ted Lasso. Ask anyone. The show gave us a masterclass in vulnerability-based leadership, emotional intelligence, and the power of genuine care in building high-performing teams. But here's the thing: putting all your ideological eggs in one philosophical basket, even a beautiful one, can create dangerous blind spots.

Ted's relentless optimism and belief in the power of kindness transformed a struggling football club and touched millions of viewers. His approach worked because it was authentic to who he was and appropriate for the context he found himself in. But what happens when kindness isn't enough? What happens when optimism becomes denial? What happens when the very strengths that make a leader effective in one situation become liabilities in another?

I learned this lesson the hard way the second time I hired the wrong tech lead. When EdTech Startup was acquired by Big Book Company, I had to scale the team quickly and needed a capable tech lead who could take over day-to-day operations of a project. The lead I found seemed genuine and spoke passionately about those he'd mentored in the past. He seemed ideal.

He started out playing well with the others, but I started noticing a belittling and pedantic nature when he would explain things. It turns out that he didn't handle criticism well, and was even worse at giving it out. I worked with him for weeks, firmly believing that he had it in him to make the changes needed to successfully integrate into the softer tech culture we were building. I kept believing that more support, more encouragement, and more patience would turn things around. I extended every effort and every branch, and like a rock he refused to move.

Eventually he hit a "red line" event and even my unwavering faith had to be wavered. I had to move the rock, and my delay in doing so had started to erode the foundation of safety I was trying to build. Owning that oversight and working to rebuild the trust brought it back stronger. Not that I recommend fabricating these kinds of situations to engage that trust-building mechanism, but it is good to know that trust can be rebuilt when it takes a hit.

My experience with the tech lead shows how Ted's "believe in people" approach can become counterproductive when taken too far. But Ted's philosophy breaks down in other ways too, particularly around hope itself. He famously rejected the phrase "it's the hope that kills you," but the Stockdale Paradox shows he was misguided about this too. Admiral James Stockdale, a prisoner of war for eight years in Vietnam, observed that the prisoners who died were the optimists who believed first they'd be out by Christmas, then Easter, then Thanksgiving. When those dates passed, they died of broken hearts. The survivors maintained unwavering faith they would prevail while confronting the brutal facts of their situation. It's not hope that kills but the wrong kind of hope. Magical thinking hope versus grounded hope.

I see this playing out in my own job search right now. The current job market is brutal and frustrating. Every resume sent out could be the one to land successfully, and every "no thank you" response brings another holiday without rescue, which is heartbreaking when you're expecting a magic end to the struggle. That's the dangerous hope — the kind that sets specific expectations and timelines that reality doesn't care about. The harsh facts are that the market is tough, rejection is common, and timing or connections matter as much as qualifications. The grounded hope is that I will eventually find the right opportunity because I keep doing the work to make it happen while facing those realities honestly.

But Ted's naiveté goes beyond hope to planning itself. His "my plan is for my plan to work" philosophy is seductive because it feels proactive and optimistic. It suggests that having a clear intention and working toward it should be sufficient. But it's magical thinking dressed up as strategy. Actually, it's not even a plan at all — it's like the underpants gnomes from South Park. Step 1: Collect underpants. Step 2: ??? Step 3: Profit. Ted knows what he wants (step 3: success), but the actual plan is just "for it to work." There's no step 2.

Or maybe I am the one being naive about his tactics. It occurs to me as I write this that his "plan for a plan to work" actually does work in a stone soup kind of way. Everyone else at Richmond believes that there is a plan, so they bring a little piece of their own, stitching them together into something that actually succeeds. So maybe Ted's approach isn't just magical thinking — it could be a specific leadership style that creates space for others to contribute their expertise.

But that only works when you have a team that believes in you, people with complementary skills willing to contribute, and an environment where collective problem-solving is possible. I wish job hunting were as easy as having a plan for my plan to work. But it doesn't work like that. I can even have the perfect plan — target the right companies, craft compelling applications, leverage my extended network — but that plan exists in a complex ecosystem in which I have little visibility and even less control. Hiring managers have competing priorities, budgets get frozen, internal candidates emerge, economic conditions shift. My plan can be excellent and still fail because it's not the only plan in play.

These examples all point to the same fundamental issue. Ted's defiance against "it's the hope that kills you" and his belief that "my plan is for my plan to work" are two sides of the same magical thinking coin — both rely on a kind of deus ex machina where good intentions and positive attitude somehow override reality. Whether it's endless patience with a problematic employee, misplaced optimism about impossible timelines, or magical thinking about career outcomes, the pattern is the same. This is the danger of single-source wisdom: it gives you a hammer and makes everything look like a nail. Ted Lasso's approach is powerful, but it's not universal. Sometimes you need to be direct rather than diplomatic. Sometimes you need to set firm boundaries rather than extending endless grace. Sometimes you need to make hard decisions that disappoint people you care about.

The leaders I've learned the most from draw from multiple philosophical traditions. They might use Ted Lasso's emotional intelligence in team building, Simon Sinek's "leaders eat last" principle in crisis management, and Brené Brown's vulnerability research in culture development. They don't use the same tools across all situations; they try to be appropriate to each context.

This requires intellectual humility. The recognition that no single framework, no matter how compelling, can address the full complexity of human leadership. It requires comfort with contradiction. The ability to hold multiple perspectives simultaneously without needing to resolve them into a single coherent system.

I think about this when I see leaders who've become disciples of particular methodologies (whether it's Agile, Design Thinking, Lean Startup, or any other framework that promises to solve all problems). These approaches all have value, but they also have limitations. The leader who can only think in terms of sprints and retrospectives will struggle with challenges that require different tools.

The same applies to leadership philosophies. Servant leadership is powerful until you need to make unpopular decisions quickly. Transformational leadership is inspiring until you need to manage day-to-day operations. Democratic leadership builds engagement until you need to cut through analysis paralysis with decisive action.

This doesn't mean abandoning frameworks or becoming philosophically rudderless. It means building a toolkit rather than wielding a single tool. It means understanding the contexts where different approaches work best. It means being willing to act against your natural inclinations when the situation demands it.

Ted Lasso himself actually demonstrated this flexibility in later episodes, showing more directness and setting firmer boundaries when his initial approach wasn't working. The character evolved beyond his initial framework, which is exactly what real leaders need to do.

The goal isn't to find the perfect leadership philosophy but to develop the judgment to know which philosophy serves each moment. Sometimes you need to be the caring coach who believes in people's potential. Sometimes you need to be the decisive executive who makes hard calls. Sometimes you need to be the vulnerable human who admits they don't have all the answers.

These leaders are philosophical omnivores. They study different traditions, experiment with different approaches, and remain curious about perspectives that challenge their existing beliefs. They're not trying to be everything to everyone; they're trying to be what each situation needs.

Think about how they actually build this toolkit. They might read Marcus Aurelius for stoic resilience during crisis, study Toyota's lean principles for operational efficiency, learn from jazz musicians about improvisation and collaboration, and observe how great teachers create psychological safety. Each influence gets filtered through their own experience and values, transformed into something that fits their context and personality.

This synthesis takes time and intentional practice. You can't just read about different leadership styles and expect to deploy them effectively. You have to experiment, fail, adjust, and gradually integrate new approaches into your existing repertoire. It's like learning to cook: you start with recipes, but eventually you develop your own style by understanding how different techniques and ingredients work together.

I saw what a void of influences produces in my first 300-level poetry class in college. There was one student who refused to read any other poets because he wanted to "remain pure from influence." He was convinced that exposure to other voices would contaminate his originality. The irony was devastating: his writing read like generic greeting cards and TV commercials — influences he'd absorbed subconsciously but never transformed into anything new. Meanwhile, the students who studied everything from ancient Greek verse to contemporary slam poetry were developing distinctive voices precisely because they had more raw material to synthesize.

The same principle applies to leadership. The leaders who avoid studying other approaches don't become more original; they become prisoners of whatever influences they've unconsciously absorbed — usually the most generic and least examined ones. The ones who deliberately expose themselves to different philosophies, frameworks, and perspectives develop the richest and most authentic leadership styles.

Building a leadership toolkit isn't about collecting techniques like trading cards or Pokémon. It's about understanding the underlying principles that make different approaches work, then adapting those principles to your own context and personality. A technique that works brilliantly for a charismatic extrovert might need significant modification for a thoughtful introvert, but the core insight can still be valuable.

Ted Lasso gave us a beautiful example of one way to lead with heart and humanity. But it's one way, not the way. The real lesson isn't to be more like Ted Lasso but to be more like the best version of ourselves, drawing wisdom from wherever we find it and applying it with the same authenticity and care that made Ted so compelling.

Ted's success wasn't just about his philosophy — it was about the environment he created. His unwavering belief in belief itself became contagious, inspiring everyone around him to bring their best selves to the collective effort. When people feel genuinely seen, valued, and trusted, they naturally contribute more than what's asked of them. Ted's "plan for a plan to work" succeeded because his belief in the team's potential created the psychological safety and shared purpose that made everyone else want to add their own piece to the solution.

Because in the end, the most dangerous thing about any powerful framework isn't that it's wrong — it's that it might be right just often enough to make you forget when it isn't.