What Ballet Taught Me About Leading with Both Spine and Heart

From the outside, ballet looks beautiful—and brutal. Clean lines. Quiet discipline. Fierce competition. Perfect posture.

And yes, that’s part of it. But it’s only the surface.

After two decades inside this world—as a dancer, choreographer, and Artistic Director of a professional ballet company—I’ve learned something far more complex:

Ballet doesn’t just demand strength. It demands tenderness, empathy, and deep emotional intelligence.

It calls you to lead with both spine and heart.

When I first stepped into leadership in my twenties, I believed strength meant being unshakable. I kept my tone clipped, my standards sky-high, and my boundaries thick. I gave direction with clarity, but I rarely left room for process. For people. For vulnerability.

Eventually, I realized I had confused control with clarity. And I wasn’t the only one.

We’re in a cultural moment that’s starting to understand what dancers have known all along: vulnerability and strength are not opposites. They reinforce each other.

Dr. Brené Brown puts it this way: “Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity, and change.” In ballet, dancers make themselves physically and emotionally vulnerable every day—stepping into roles, taking corrections in public, risking failure in full view. A good leader doesn’t just tolerate that process. They enter into it.

And as Simon Sinek writes, “Leadership is not about being in charge. It’s about taking care of those in your charge.” That care must go beyond logistics. It must reach the soul of the person you’re leading.

Julianna rehearsing with Lead Artist Stephanie Joe at Ballet 5:8 Studios in winter 2019.

Here’s what ballet taught me about that kind of leadership:

1. Truth is not unkind. Silence is.

Dancers don’t grow through flattery. They grow when you speak truth—clearly, consistently, and with dignity. In any field, honest feedback is one of the deepest ways to show belief in someone’s potential. If you withhold it, they stay stuck. If you weaponize it, they shut down. But when you pair truth with compassion, you unlock growth.

2. Structure frees people—not the other way around.

Ballet thrives on form. Not because it limits dancers, but because it liberates them. When expectations are clear, people stop guessing and start creating. Boundaries become a scaffold for risk-taking. In the workplace, clarity around roles, values, and accountability creates the safety people need to bring their full selves to the work.

3. Grace is a decision—not a lack of standards.

Every dancer messes up. Often. Grace doesn’t ignore mistakes. It walks through them. Grace means holding people accountable with hope—believing they can rise, and staying present while they do. Lowering the bar isn’t grace—it’s abandonment. True grace calls people higher, again and again.

4. Leadership is emotional labor. Own that.

Ballet studios don’t function on autopilot. Neither do teams. A leader must read the room, hold space for tension, celebrate wins that aren’t their own, and carry the weight of people’s stories. This isn’t weakness—it’s the cost of leadership. And it’s worth every ounce of effort.

5. Your job isn’t to be liked. It’s to be trusted.

As a young leader, I feared disappointing people. I thought being liked would keep things running smoothly. But clarity earns more trust than charm. Teams need you to stay steady when it’s uncomfortable, admit when you miss it, and make decisions from purpose, not popularity.

Ballet gave me a strong spine. But it’s the heart that keeps me here.

Not the performances. Not the titles. The people. The process. The transformation.

Leadership doesn’t shout. It doesn’t flinch. It doesn’t retreat.
It shows up—again and again—with truth in one hand and grace in the other.
That’s the kind of leader I’m still becoming.