219. 5 Trust Breakers Sabotaging Your Dance Team's Success and How to Fix Them

[00:00:00] Hey, dancers and coaches, welcome back to Passion for Dance. I'm Dr. Chelsea, and my mission is to create happier, more successful dancers through positive mental skills. And I have spent a lot of time this summer talking to dance teams about building the culture they want. And for many of them, that means a conversation around trust.

A lot of dancers will say that we have to trust each other on and off the floor. But then we gotta dig into how that actually happens, because a great routine can win, but a great culture will create the legacy. So how do you get that culture? It's not just about building trust, although that's of course a key piece. To me I think the challenge is actually about avoiding the things that break your trust. Today I'm talking about trust breakers, the little and sometimes big actions that slowly chip away at the foundation of your team. Most coaches and dancers talk about building trust. That's great. But today I'm gonna flip that around and talk about the behaviors that destroy [00:01:00] it, because if we can name them, we can stop them before they derail our season.

 and this episode goes hand in hand with my Dance Coach mental skills bundle. It's like a plug and play system to teach mental skills to your dancers in just a few minutes a week. I took 12 of the different resources I'd created over the years and put it together in one place. It includes one about the 12 culture killers where trust breakers is one of them, as well as journal prompts to use throughout the season, conversations to have with assistant coaches and an accountability worksheet to get you started on the right foot this season. You can check that out at passion for dance podcast.com/mental skills.

Okay, let's talk about five big trust breakers that might be hurting your culture.

Welcome to Passion for Dance. I'm Dr. Chelsea, a former professional dancer, turn sport psychologist, and this podcast is for everyone in the dance industry who want to learn actionable strategies and new mindsets to build happier, more successful dancers. I know what it feels like to push through the [00:02:00] pain, take on all the criticism, and do whatever it takes to make sure the show will go on.

But I also know that we understand more about mental health and resilience than ever before, and it's time to change the industry for the better. This podcast is for all of us to connect, learn, and share our passion for dance with the world.

To start off, I want to define what I mean by trust in a dance team context specifically. To me, trust is the belief that your teammates and coaches have your best interests at heart and will follow through on what they say. I hear dancers say they want to trust that their teammates are going over choreography at home, that they trust a teammate to do a summer workout, that they trust you on the floor to execute when it counts, that they trust you to always put in your best effort.

Research shows that teams with high trust have all sorts of positive benefits, including better communication, more effective conflict resolution, and of course higher performance overall. So when I talk to teams about [00:03:00] creating a positive culture, it's no surprise, it often starts with trust. That trust could look like Knowing your teammate will go full out, even if coach isn't watching, believing that if you mess up, no one will humiliate you in front of the team. So it's okay to take a risk. And feeling confident that your coach or your teammates will listen to your concerns without judgment.

When trust is high, dancers feel safe, creative, and willing to take risks in practice. But when trust is broken, motivation, tanks, the energy gets tense in the room and usually cliques form really fast. It takes a long time to build a positive culture. That starts with trust, but we are all one trust breaking action away from destruction.

So here are five most common trust breakers that I see when I'm talking with teams, and I also wanna pause and share some credit. A lot of this comes from John Gordon's work and his book, the Power of a Positive Team, which was a great resource for coaches and leaderships. If you wanna check it out yourself or ever thinking [00:04:00] about a summer book club, something for your team.

Okay, here are the most common trust breakers I see in competitive dance. One is playing favorites. Now favorites might be coming from coaches, but it happens among peers too when some people are left out of a social invite or leadership doesn't listen to everyone's opinion only their inner circle, and it's the classic perception of favoritism coming from coaches, like only allowing the same handful of dancers to be in front or highlighted regardless of talent or effort with no explanation. I talked a lot about favoritism recently in episode 211, and it's a really quick way to break trust on your team, but it's more nuanced than I can go into here , so check out that episode if you think favoritism might be one of the challenges on the team. But as a reminder, it isn't about everyone getting equal treatment. It's about transparent reasoning and everyone getting what they need.

The second trust breaker is not listening. If you wanna build trust, coaches often say You can come to me with anything, or new [00:05:00] captains say, I wanna be a resource. I'm here for you. I don't want you to be scared of the seniors.

But if a dancer shares a concern that gets brushed off, there's a crack in the culture's armor. If you say, we are a team that values everyone you belong, you can share how you're doing. You have to actually listen. Otherwise, dancers will stop speaking up and psychological safety disappears. And I'll get a little bit more into psychological safety, but when that happens and dancers are worried about speaking up because they feel like they could get in trouble or they'll, they're not valued, dancers will start to lose motivation or participate out of fear and being terrified rather than building confidence. So not listening can certainly destroy the trust on a team.

The third one is when people say one thing but do another. If a teammate says, I'm sorry I missed practice today, I'll learn the choreo from the video, but then they show up to practice the next day not knowing what's happening. Teammates won't trust her. If a dancer says he will post on the team social [00:06:00] media for everyone's birthday all season, but then misses some, but not all, but word won't mean much. In research, we call it the say do ratio. It should be one-to-one. If you say it, you do it. If that ratio drops and there's a lot of saying and not a lot of doing, there's also not a lot of trust.

The fourth trust breaker is competing instead of collaborating on a team. When dancers are encouraged to constantly compete against each other rather than collaborating for everyone's improvement, it's hard to trust decisions, feedback, and what people say. A little internal competition is okay, but with clear communication and a culture where everyone can rise and thrive, not just one or two dancers.

The fifth is when we're talking behind someone's back. This is the biggest trust issue I see on teams, the gossip and the conversations behind the scenes. When one thing is said in your presence and something else is said, when you're not there, of course [00:07:00] you wouldn't believe your teammates anymore.

This happens when you're told you're doing great at practice, but then you find out that the seniors are talking about you at lunch and don't think you can hack it. Instead of giving clear and helpful feedback in person, there's complaining and gossiping in private. Cultures that allow gossip and complaining will never build trust.

A little quick story from a team I worked with a few years ago. They had just come off of a strong performance at State. The team was doing great. They were all excited for a new season, but once the next competition season rolled around, their trust and culture started to crumble.

What I saw was the new captains went on a bit of a power trip and stopped listening and collaborating with the rest of the team. There was a lot of complaining on team text threads that the coach wasn't a part of, and cliques got worse and worse efforts dropped because , it became a culture of, well, if she's not going full out, then why the heck should I and the energy in the room and practice felt like everyone was holding their breath or just cranky.

The trust [00:08:00] breaker wasn't just the gossiping and cliques, it was the secrecy and the inconsistency that came with it. And once trust is broken, it can be really hard to deal with, but you can address it and create a clear shared system for building that trust. so let's talk about three ways we can build trust back up.

From research and my own work with dance teams, here's three steps to handle trust breakers before they take over, and that's the key part here. The sooner you start to handle it, the easier it'll be. The first one is to name it immediately. Don't be afraid to call it out calmly and clearly and use neutral language., I noticed you seem a little distracted at practice rather than. You never pay attention. You can talk to the team and say, I noticed some tension in here today, or I noticed we seem to be talking to the same small groups of people. What's changed? This might need to be a conversation with leadership or other small groups, you have to feel out the dynamics, but if you can calmly name it immediately and address. It's easier to reset. If we want our dancers to be able to [00:09:00] notice complaining and handle it. We also have to model how to do that and get the leadership involved. If complaining is allowed to slide, it will only get worse and worse, and I have found teammates start to bond over complaining, which of course becomes a bigger problem.

The second way to address it is to revisit your team agreements. At the beginning of the season, most coaches have some sort of conversation around team expectations, values, and do the work around setting culture. And if you don't, that's where you start. One good option is creating an accountability statement, which involves walking through and creating essentially a pact about what values you want to uphold and how the team will do that.

If you want more help with that, I have an accountability statement worksheet in the mental skills bundle, which you can find at passion for dance podcast.com/mental skills. What matters though is that at some point before there are a lot of issues, you've set the standard of expectations. Then when those trust breakers happen and they will, you revisit [00:10:00] your team agreements, it's a lot easier to ask dancers to call each other up or to have hard conversation with a dancer who isn't living up to expectations if the standards were clearly set before. Then you can ask your dancers, does this action align with our values and standards?

And the third way to build trust back up is to build psychological safety. I mentioned it before, and this is what I mean, you create an environment where dancers know they can try things and take interpersonal risks.

They feel they can express concerns or bring up an issue politely without fear of punishment, or they can try things including dance skills without shame or embarrass. If a coach says, you can always come talk to me in a psychologically safe environment, that's actually true, and dancers are not shamed or punished when trying to responsibly discussion issue on the team.

It's a team where there's a mutual respect and trust, and when there's trust first [00:11:00] you can address trust breaking more direct. When the coach and leadership have created a space that feels safe, not only can you have those hard conversations when trust breakers happen, but it also allows dancers to be more creative and recover from mistakes. Both of those big assets on a dance team, of course.

So I think collectively we understand that trust is built slowly, but can be broken in seconds. Whether you're a dancer, captain, or coach, you have the power to protect the trust on your team. Start by paying attention to the small things, how you give feedback, how you handle conflict. Does everyone do what they say they will do? , Then I have one question I want you to ask your team this week. What's one thing we could stop doing right now that would make our team more trusting? Have a conversation to identify the trust breakers that might be happening right now, so you can name it and help the team commit to improvement. Don't forget to grab the mental skills bundle If you don't have it yet, it has the accountability statement worksheet, as well as 12 Culture Killers and other mental skills [00:12:00] resources I've created over the years. Again, that's at passion for dance podcast.com/mental skills.

And remember, talent might win the moment, but trust truly wins the season. So thanks for joining me today and keep sharing your passion for dance with the world.

Thank you for listening to Passion for Dance. You can find all episode resources at passion for dance podcast.com and be sure to follow me on Instagram for more high performance tips at Doctor Chelsea dot Otti. That's P-I-E-R-O-T-T-I. This podcast is for passionate dancers and dance educators who are ready to change our industry by creating happier, more successful dancers.

I'm Dr. Chelsea and keep sharing your passion for dance with the world.