4 Ways You’re Demotivating Your Team

We spend too much of our lives at work to settle. Staying in an unhealthy work environment long term will damage your health & steal your joy. Don’t stay in a toxic environment you KNOW will never change. Most environments CAN change with effort; sometimes you may be unknowingly demotivating your team. 

Through helping hundreds of companies, there are four main reasons workplaces are toxic. When you eliminate these issues, morale improves, and the organization profits.

4 Ways You’re Demotivating Your Team

1. Conflict Avoidance

When there’s an “elephant in the room,” get it out and face it. There are often unaddressed issues because people fear the repercussions of being open. Your team will quickly lose trust in you as a leader if you’re passive and afraid to face reality. 

Solution: 

Make it safe to have conflict. Create an expectation of transparency amongst your leaders. Enforce a “No Gossip Policy“. Insist team members to address issues directly with those involved. Hold people accountable for performance and eeal with incompetence swiftly through training, reseating, or termination.

If you found this information helpful, SUBSCRIBE TODAY to access my free video & worksheet, Shatterproof Yourself Lite: 7 Small Steps to a Giant Leap in Your Mental Health.

2. Lack of Trust

Can your co-workers rely on you? Untrustworthiness is demotivating. Trust is built over time through consistency. Lack of follow-through, exaggeration, and low transparency erode trust. If you forget to do something you committed to doing – apologize. People will forgive you if you own it but lose faith in you if you don’t. Say “I was wrong, no excuses” when you miss the mark (e.g., procrastination, anger outbursts, etc.).

Solution: 

Own your mistakes. Create opportunities for connection by celebrating birthdays and work anniversaries, having positive conversations, engaging Ice-Breakers, and learning about each other’s personality types.

We created a FREE DISC Personality Assessment to take and share with co-workers and friends. Once completed, your results will be emailed to you automatically.

3. Procrastination

You’re discouraging your team by not taking action. Behind procrastination is fear—fear of failure, judgment, letting people down, and rejection. All procrastinators are perfectionists succumbing to damaging core beliefs like “If I can’t do it at a high level, I won’t do it all.” They use procrastination to avoid tackling the most important tasks and problems.

Solution: 

Let go of perfectionism, trust your instincts, and make decisions. When you make mistakes, keep your head high because you’re doing your best. Encourage employees to take risks by modeling this yourself. Address the fear behind your indecision.

“Success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It’s the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill

4. Lack of Clarity

Ambiguity causes anxiety! Don’t be unclear. Over-communicate the essentials like values, purpose, mission, and vision. Share examples of your team living out the core values. Post and share company goals over and over again. Talk about the company’s history frequently. 

Solution: 

Revisit, highlight, post, and creatively communicate the essentials over and over. People forget unless reminded frequently.

How DYL Can Help – Contact Us

1. Have a Decide Your Legacy coach review your DISC results and discuss them with you. You’ll gain valuable insight into how you can better function at home and work.
2. Have a Decide Your Legacy coach lead your leadership team through the DISC Personality assessment. You’ll understand those you work with better, and improve your team’s level of trust and cohesiveness.

Create a Positive & Productive Work Environment (post) by Adam Gragg
11 Fun Ice Breakers (post) by Adam Gragg

If you found this information helpful, SUBSCRIBE TODAY to access my free video & worksheet, Shatterproof Yourself Lite: 7 Small Steps to a Giant Leap in Your Mental Health.