What could a fictional soccer coach teach an experienced hospital executive? More than you might expect. Ted Lasso, Apple TV’s endearing comedy, follows an American football coach hired to run an English soccer club despite knowing almost nothing about the game. The show offers three useful lessons about earning trust, holding people accountable, and developing future leaders, all with humility and optimism.
What Ted Lasso Would Fix First
Imagine your hospital hiring a new CEO who doesn’t know the difference between an observation bed and an inpatient admission and can’t understand how a hospital can be full of patients and still lose money. Now imagine he’s relentlessly cheerful and brings homemade biscuits to work.
You’d assume he won’t last, or decide it’s time to update your resume.
That was roughly the reception Ted Lasso got when he took over AFC Richmond. It shouldn’t have worked. He made real mistakes, and the worst of them had nothing to do with soccer. But three of his decisions about people translate well to a hospital, because none of them required knowing the game he was hired to coach.
Sometimes Leadership Is About Fixing the Shower
When Ted arrived, he put up the suggestion box. Most of the notes were insults, but one complained about the weak water pressure in the showers.
Ted got it fixed, and the players noticed.
Your hospital has its own version of that shower: the small problems employees have complained about so often that they’ve stopped asking anyone to fix them. Those complaints rarely reach the executive suite. Some never leave the break room; others went to a manager and stopped there. So, ask on rounds, framed as a system gap rather than anyone’s failure: “What have you stopped asking us to fix?”
It might be a broken blanket warmer. Pick one and fix it through the unit manager, so the manager can tell the team at the next huddle: “You told us about the warmer. It was replaced Tuesday.” If the fix needs capital, give a date instead of a vague yes: “It goes to the capital committee on the 15th, and we’ll tell you what they decide.” Either answer buys considerable credibility, because the whole unit hears that speaking up got a response this time.
The Star Who Makes Everyone Else Worse
Listening earned Ted goodwill. It didn’t make him soft. Jamie Tartt was the team’s most talented player and its most selfish, a striker who played for his own highlight reel and made everyone around him less effective. Ted benched him.
Your Jamie Tartt might be a surgeon generating millions in annual revenue, or a manager with the best numbers in the building and a trail of unhappy employees behind them. What would you tolerate from them that you’d never accept from anyone else?
You can’t bench a physician, since privileges and employment agreements apply, so with a surgeon the conversation starts in the CMO’s office: “The complaints about this surgeon are documented and discussed, but they haven’t stopped. I’m asking for the medical staff process to take it up this quarter.” If nothing is documented yet, start there. With a manager, the conversation is yours: “Your productivity numbers are the best in the hospital. However, your unit also has our highest turnover, and I keep hearing that you criticize nurses in front of their peers. The public criticism needs to stop immediately. I want to see turnover come down by spring, or we’ll be discussing whether this role is the right fit.” Expect the manager to mention that other hospitals would want them. Decide beforehand whether you can live with that, and if you can, say so: “That may be true. The standard for how we treat people here still applies.”
The Promotion That Wasn’t Enough
Ted’s biggest mistake was the opposite of benching a star. It was lifting someone up, then looking away. Nate started as the team’s equipment manager. Ted promoted him to the coaching staff for his knowledge of and enthusiasm for the game. Then as the leader he turned to everything else a struggling club demanded. Nate yearned for coaching himself, grew insecure, and eventually turned on the team and the man who gave him the chance.
Nate was responsible for his own behavior. Ted’s failure was assuming that developing someone ends with the promotion.
Consider the nurse manager promoted to director. Everyone expresses confidence, and then she is left alone to manage former peers and make decisions she has never had to make before.
If you’re her direct leader, starting the week of the promotion, put thirty minutes on the calendar every other week for ninety days, then monthly for the rest of her first year, and ask: “What decision did you make this week that you weren’t sure about?” Answer it yourself first, with a call of your own, so it feels like a conversation, not a test. Nate never got that question. If she reports to someone else, ask her leader: “Who is she talking through the difficult decisions with?”
Final Thought
Ted taped a handwritten BELIEVE sign above the locker room door. The sign itself changed nothing. Your hospital has its own version in the mission statement displayed in the lobby and the values imprinted on every badge reel. Employees judge those words the way Ted’s players did, by what happens when they speak up, when a star crosses a line, and after someone gets promoted.
Culture isn’t what you preach; it’s what you tolerate, reward, and model every day.
Candidates judge it too. They want to know why a leadership seat opened and how the people in charge treat their staff. Health Career Talent hears those questions often and can tell you how candidates are reading roles like yours. Reach out before your next leadership search to gain invaluable insight.