The Rise of the Toxic Teammate
The Rise of the Toxic Teammate
It's 2024, the year that Women’s Sports erupted to go beyond a moment and surge into a movement. But it’s also the year that a woman ran for president and lost to a convicted felon. The duality of the rise of women’s sports juxtaposed with the fall of women’s rights is a metaphor for what's going on in the female youth soccer space. We mentor many girls in this country. We provide team sessions to countless clubs and teams. And almost every time we run a session, the notion of the Toxic Teammate comes up. We can pinpoint culture issues on a team within the first five minutes of working with a group. And sadly, with the landscape of our sport we are seeing a decline in club loyalty, a lack of importance placed on team camaraderie and a rise of toxic teammates. The good news is, we can make positive changes through our response to these issues! We break down what it means to be a toxic teammate and how to deal with this issue. Keep in mind, everyone’s situation is unique and one size doesn’t always fit all, but we hope this can help navigate these choppy waters and empower you to realize that you can do hard things!
What is a Toxic Teammate?
What is a Toxic Teammate you ask? A toxic teammate is someone who behaves in a way that negatively impacts the team or other individuals. Toxic teammates are on teams of all genders, ages and levels. But the female toxic teammate is running rampant and many players on the field do not know what to do about her. She is causing players to move clubs, rifts between cliques, age group moves and coach/player division. Not to mention all the parent issues that can happen as well.
What does a Toxic Teammate do?
Shows Unprofessionalism: Professionalism is needed to take your game beyond the club level to play on the USWNT, professionally or in college some day. Yet a toxic teammate will engage in gossiping, loudly or indiscreetly. In our female soccer space, the gossip often filters through small group chats over text or social media, or even whispers at practice. It can even be sly looks while coach is talking or eye rolling. Sometimes its out in the open with comments, yelling while playing or snide remarks when the coach isn’t paying attention.
Driven by Fear: Fear drives the toxic teammate. They are scared they aren’t good enough and therefore they create relational aggression towards teammates to accommodate their lack of self esteem. Relational Aggression is intended to harm others through deliberate manipulation of their social standing and relationships. They attempt to create the same fears in teammates to make themselves feel better and obtain a high social standing on the team. This occurs by teaming up with others, creating cliques, asking teammates to “dumb down” their abilities so all are on the same page, or exclusion and isolation.
Controlling Behavior: Using fear tactics, toxic teammates will attempt to control team culture by having a louder voice or presence, especially with the quietest players on the team. They resent the success of others. Their inability to be open minded in their thinking as to how a team can find success, filters through the team creating many other followers.
Inconsistent Accountability: Toxic teammates do not take accountability for their contribution. Everyone has a contribution to team culture, but the toxic teammate assumes no responsibility. They often defer responsibility, lacking heavily in self awareness skills.
What can I do to rid our team of the Toxic Teammate?
Well I’m here to tell you, you can’t. There are always going to be bad apples in the bunch. We don’t have control over them or the way they act. It's just not a controllable. But that doesn’t mean you are powerless or need to feel hopeless. (Unless you bail and go to another club. BUT I’m here to tell you, EVERY CLUB HAS BAD APPLES. Parents reading this, you are just teaching your children that when things get hard we run from the problem instead of facing it. And your child will never succeed if that is what they gain from their youth sports experience.)
So what can we do? We can put our big girl pants on and DEAL WITH IT using some of these strategies:
Communication: Learning how to have hard conversations is part of becoming a more professional player, gaining more emotional intelligence and becoming a more mature human being. Great communicators are also great listeners and they are good at ASKING QUESTIONS. Remember, assuming we know why our teammate is acting the way she is, isn’t helpful. Great communicators also can start a hard conversation with validation. Here is an example conversation: “I sensed that you might be feeling ____ towards me. Is that true? How are you feeling? I really appreciate you as a teammate. However, there are times that I have felt ________ when you ______. Can we find a way through this so we can work together for the success of the team?” We get this feels formal. Make it your own. But try to use the “I Statements” as a starting point.
Limit Interaction: In other words…BOUNDARIES. Not every situation in the youth soccer space is going to feel like everything is perfect and everyone gets along. That is also part of growing up. Not everyone is going to like us and that is ok. Although it feels nice and mutual respect is the goal, its not realistic all the time. Especially in today's soccer landscape when teams are less about camaraderie and more about the individual development to get a college scholarship or pro contract. Setting boundaries is an important life lesson. Its learning what serves you, and what doesn’t. Its knowing what triggers you and how to limit those triggers. Its having self awareness to know how she makes you feel and how you can avoid those interactions that don’t make you feel good.
Seek Support: Get the people in your life who lift you up to help you navigate the nuances of your situation. Ask them to help guide you through how to have the tough conversation or make the decision on what you are willing or not willing to deal with. Sometimes the toxicity is too much for our mental health and leaving the situation is warranted. Just seek support. IF you don’t have any, reach out to us. We are here for you!
Controllables: Focus on what you can control. You can’t control her words, her actions, who’s on her side or not, how she performs on and off the field. But you can control YOUR RESPONSE. You can control your attitude, your effort and what you let bother you. Its hard. Not pretending that its easy, but your response can be a very powerful weapon against toxicity. Focusing on your why, your PETS (positive empowering thoughts) and not letting yourself ruminate over her comments, is all in your control.
Players, we wish this wasn’t a part of our sport. We wish all women and girls could come together and agree that we are so much more powerful together than apart. We wish girls could see that we are all uniquely different and that is what makes us special. We wish that teams did value camaraderie, culture and teamwork more as girls age through the sport. And we wish that the system was set up to support us and keep us safe from toxicity. We wish our parents and coaches had all the answers for us too. Just remember they are doing the best they can with the tools they have. You are never too young to add your own tools to your toolbox. And many of us in the soccer space are always fighting to make the system better for future generations.
To coaches, THIS IS PART OF YOUR JOB. If your team culture is off, it reflects on your leadership. We don’t expect you to be an expert on this as not ONE PART of your coaching licenses deals with team management, parent management and social emotional development of players, but to be honest, it's still your job. If you don’t know how to fix it or aren’t sure of what to do, reach out to your DOC’s, your league or beyond. If they still can’t help you, reach out to us, Its what we do!
The good news girls, is that you can do hard things. And the earlier you learn how to navigate these types of situations with toxic teammates, the better off you’ll be as a human and leader in this world. We have an element of control over how much we let toxicity affect us.
Want to learn more? Check out our Winter Mentorship Program. One on one virtual, asynchronous mentorship on the mental skills needed to be a confident and mentlaly strong player. Registration is open now!