When Ted Lasso stepped in as coach of struggling AFC Richmond in the hit television series Ted Lasso, he brought an upbeat, hands-on leadership style that inspired a team desperate for change. New research suggests that this kind of leadership can indeed boost motivation and performance — but only when employees already believe change is necessary. If people are content with the way things are, the same approach may fail or even create resistance.

The study was led by David Harrison, associate dean for research and Charles and Elizabeth Prothro Regents Distinguished University Chair in Business Administration at the University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business. Harrison and his colleagues found that new leaders are far more likely than existing leaders to influence organisational change. Still, success depends heavily on whether their leadership style matches what employees feel the organisation needs.

“Leaders who come into a position with their own agenda or prior style will only succeed if that style happens to be a fit with the top manager behaviors the employees want to see,” Harrison said. According to the researchers, employees are much more attentive to new leaders because leadership transitions naturally create uncertainty and expectation. Staff members look to incoming leaders for signals about priorities, behaviours, and future direction in ways they typically do not with long-standing leaders.

To examine this dynamic, the researchers studied leadership changes in 112 elementary schools across the United States between 2014 and 2017. Half of the schools replaced their principals during the study period, while the other half retained their existing principals. The schools were carefully matched according to factors such as size, age, district characteristics, and local income levels. Teachers completed surveys before and after leadership transitions, rating their agreement with the principal’s vision, their own level of engagement, and whether they believed change was needed within the school.

The findings revealed that teachers who felt dissatisfied with existing conditions were far more receptive to a new principal’s coaching-oriented leadership style. In schools where teachers already believed improvement was necessary, the incoming leader’s active involvement and encouragement aligned with staff expectations. “In that condition, the leader’s style matched the teachers’ relative dissatisfaction with the status quo,” Harrison explained. By contrast, when teachers were generally satisfied with the existing environment, intensive coaching and intervention were more likely to be seen as disruptive or unnecessary.

The researchers then examined whether these attitudes translated into measurable outcomes. They tracked school-level standardised test scores over the following two years and found significant improvements in schools where the new principal’s leadership style matched teachers’ appetite for change. Harrison said the results were striking because improving public school test scores is notoriously difficult without major increases in funding or resources. “I was gobsmacked,” he said. “This wholesale change was in top leadership instead.”

The study concludes that successful organisational change depends on a delicate combination of factors: a leader’s newcomer status, employees’ readiness for change, and the leader’s day-to-day coaching behaviour. While leadership research often celebrates grand visions and inspirational speeches, Harrison argues that in workplaces where leaders interact directly with employees, practical coaching matters far more. Employees may feel energised when guidance is welcomed, but frustrated when it feels intrusive. “Coaching doesn’t always work,” Harrison said. “Sometimes it is unwanted and interferes with employee effort. But other times, it helps to light a motivational fire.”

More information: Katherine Klein et al, For Good and for Bad: The Distinctive Effects of Successors’ Leadership Behavior on Collective Engagement and Organizational Performance, Journal of Applied Psychology. DOI: 10.1037/apl0001359

Journal information: Journal of Applied Psychology Provided by University of Texas at Austin