Toxic Leaders

As I spoke about today in class, I was involved in an extremely toxic team environment. When I was a senior in high school, I was recruited by a university to join their inaugural women's lacrosse team. I went to the school, and to be absolutely honest, if I had the knowledge that I do now I would have known it was not the place for me. I had been recruited by a lot of other universities but no where really clicked for me. This was a really unique opportunity and I knew if I didn't give it a shot I would always wonder what it could have offered me. They also had the perfect program for the profession I thought I wanted at the time so professionally it made a lot of sense for me. I decided to commit to the school. As many bad experiences as I did have, I do not regret taking this chance. The amount of growth I went through from this time until the beginning of my junior year was astronomical.
In the summer we went for a week long camp at the university. Almost immediately, those of us who had been recruited first and vaguely knew each other as the top prospects through social media and such formed a clique. As we moved in, we were all roommates with other team members and almost all of us lived on the exact same floor of the same dorm. I cannot stress how absolutely toxic this environment was. I became very close with a guy I met at orientation and as the year progressed spent more and more time hiding out away from my room as I could. I felt like I really had no safe space. The original clique was okay at first and then went down in flames, hard and fast. I will not admit that everything I did was perfect my freshman year as a naive 18 year old, but some of the behavior of my teammates was frankly appalling. One of our biggest issues was that our key leaders were actually some of the biggest contributors to our issues. My coach knew of the issues that were going on, and would admit this individually to other girls, but failed to address it even once. I performed much worse than I would have had I been put in an environment that I was able to succeed in. I was constantly worried about what my teammates were saying about me and had a hard time fighting the voices inside my head telling me that I was failing. This spiraled until the winter, when I decided to make a change. I ended up turning my performance around and becoming a key piece of our defense. For me, it was too little too late though. I knew that my coach likely would not change her ways. I also knew that a lot of my relationships with my teammates were already beyond full repair. I knew that this toxic environment was not going to improve any time soon. I loved the commitment of being on a Division 1 team. And I finally was performing at a high level and was in a great spot for coming back next season.
In my end of the year meeting, I literally cried in front of my coach because of the environment that I had been in the entire year. What really bothered me in that meeting was she acknowledged she knew what was going on. I knew she genuinely felt bad that some of us went through the conflicts that we did, but she took very little accountability for her role in the situation. Deciding to leave was the hardest decision I had made so far. Through all of the bad relationships, I also made a lot of really great ones. But I knew at that time that I was never going to be a professional lacrosse player, and I was likely never going to be happy on this team. I decided that what was best for my career long term and my overall happiness was transferring. The amount of girls who apparently agreed with me, and also left, spoke for itself. Fortunately for the current team, it seems like their culture has changed a lot since I left (I'm not sure it could have gotten worse though). But like they say, when one door closes, another one opens. I have found an amazing environment around me and countless people who support me. I have never felt more competent in my academics or more sure that I am in the exact place that I am supposed to be. UNH has brought me so many amazing opportunities and is the best decision I have ever made.
I learned so much about being a leader from this time. It is important to understand when there are issues among your organization. It is also important to address those issues and solve conflicts. As a leader, it is unacceptable to leave the people who look to you feeling like they are being left out to dry. Leaders can make or break a team. I know I have learned from her mistakes.