When fans enjoy a sports game in person or from the comfort of their homes, few think about the person who coordinated the team’s travel, the producer who ensured the replay was available, the equipment manager who made sure the athletes had backup gear to perform, or the partnership coordinator who worked late to accommodate last-minute credentials.
Yet sport is built on these invisible acts.
Every industry has work that happens behind the scenes. In sport, however, there is a particular dissonance; much of the effort contributed by these supporting actors was never part of their formal job descriptions. These acts often began as examples of commitment, dedication, or, as the Journal of Applied Psychology calls it, Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB). Over time, however, what was once noted in a job description as “other duties as assigned” has now become expected.
The Psychology Behind the “Whatever It Takes” Mentality
Social psychologists have long studied OCB; the discretionary actions employees perform that go beyond formal job requirements and contribute to organizational effectiveness. Examples include staying late to solve an unexpected problem, helping an overwhelmed colleague, or stepping in to protect the reputation of the team.
Sports organizations often depend on these behaviors. And one reason the show Ted Lasso may resonate with so many viewers is that it has surprisingly little to do with wins and losses and more to do with the psychology of teams.
Across four seasons, record viewers watched fictitious athletes, coaches, owners, and support staff discover a truth that social psychologists have studied for decades: high-performing organizations are rarely built on talent alone. They are also built on trust, relationships, shared identity, and the often-unnoticed actions people take on behalf of one another.
In many ways, Ted Lasso illustrated something the sports industry experiences every day. The most important work is often invisible and dangerously taken for granted. The issue is not that people help. The issue is what happens when helping becomes expected. What was once extraordinary becomes ordinary. What was once appreciated becomes assumed.
The Journal of Organizational Behavior suggests that this shift can have consequences. When employees feel pressure to engage in citizenship behaviors, they may increase their OCB, but this pressure is also associated with work–family conflict, work–leisure conflict, job stress, and intentions to quit. The distinction is important: the problem is not necessarily the act of helping itself, but what happens when discretionary contribution becomes an expectation.
When Exceptional Becomes Standard
Professional sports offer a useful illustration of how exceptional practices can gradually become organizational expectations.
Consider a suite manager.
A request started with just personally managing the attendance list for a big game because the ownership group was in town. Rather than this being a one-time request, it now becomes something this employee is tasked with doing for every game, regardless of who is in town or the gravity of the game.
This process resembles what researchers in the International Journal of Project Management and Advances in Nursing Science describe as the normalization of deviance: practices that initially depart from established standards can, over time, become accepted as normal operating practice. Once a new practice is repeated without immediate negative consequences, the standard itself can gradually shift. What was once exceptional becomes the new normal.
This is, in many ways, how innovation and advancement occur. Organizations identify better ways of supporting performance, competitors adopt them, and higher standards gradually spread across the industry.
The challenge is what happens to the work required to sustain those standards.
Every new list creates additional administrative responsibilities. Every new expectation creates new forms of invisible work. The “pitch in and make it happen” mentality can encourage employees to step outside their formal roles because the game has to go on. Over time, however, those temporary acts of contribution can become permanent responsibilities without a corresponding reconsideration of workload, role boundaries, or compensation.
The Passion Trap
This is where invisible work can become problematic. Research on citizenship behaviors generally finds that they can benefit organizations. Yet when organizations become dependent on them, a paradox emerges.
The people who care the most often absorb the most extra work.
In sports, passion can mask excessive demands. Passion is one of the sports industry’s greatest strengths. It can also become one of its greatest vulnerabilities. Employees stay because they love the team. They volunteer. They sacrifice. They stay late, solve problems, fill gaps, and continue saying yes because the work matters to them. They become workaholics, according to scholars from the European Sport Management Quarterly.
When employees care deeply about the organization, they may absorb additional responsibilities without questioning whether those responsibilities belong within their role. Their willingness to contribute can make organizational gaps less visible because someone is always willing to fill them. Masking role clarity, process gaps, and staffing challenges.
Research on citizenship pressure reinforces this concern. Employees can experience a distinction between choosing to contribute beyond their formal role and feeling pressured to do so. When citizenship becomes pressured rather than discretionary, the additional contribution itself can become a source of fatigue and strain.
The result is a cycle familiar to many professionals:
The reward for being dependable is often being depended upon even more.
What begins as commitment can therefore become an invisible job demand.
Over time, however, yesterday’s voluntary effort can become today’s expectation.
The reward for doing more is often being asked to do even more.
The “Believe” Sign and OCB
One of the most memorable symbols in Ted Lasso was the simple yellow “Believe” sign hanging in the locker room.
The sign was never simply about positive thinking. It represented a collective commitment to contributing to something bigger than oneself. Yet when organizational citizenship becomes an expectation rather than a choice, that same commitment can come at the expense of employees, as their willingness to contribute beyond their formal roles becomes an assumed obligation.
Much like the fictional professional sport team AFC Richmond, successful organizations often rely on invisible contributors who create the conditions for excellence long before the whistle blows or the quarterly reports are finalized.
If there is a lesson leaders can take from both social psychology and Ted Lasso, it may be this: A championship culture is not built solely by the people who receive the applause. It is built by the people whose contributions make the applause possible.
The challenge for leaders is not to eliminate Organizational Citizenship Behavior. It is to ensure that generosity remains a choice rather than becoming an invisible requirement of the job.
