How to Demotivate Your Team in 6 Simple Steps

Many of us are motivated and eager to do well when we first walk into work. We enter the office energized to achieve our goals, finish projects and accept new responsibilities. When working in a team environment, we often have a manager overseeing our projects and tasks and ideally being the go-to person with any professional concerns or ideas. A strong leader can help to motivate team members and take a proactive approach to ensuring all work is done in an effective and positive manner.

While motivating a team should be part of the manager's responsibilities, many leaders end up demotivating their teams, often unintentionally; and this can cause repercussions throughout the company.

As a leader, it's important to pay attention to the factors that could demotivate your team and ensure you are not destroying employee morale and enthusiasm. Here are 6 sure-fire ways to fail miserably at motivating your staff.

Provide Little or No Communication

A team can only be successful when everyone's ideas are recognized and communication is kept open. A lack of communication between employer and employee results in a shut down of information, respect and therefore motivation. It's important that the manager share relevant company news with his or her employees. Everyone should be kept in the loop when it comes to things that impact them and their work.  Team work and communication go hand-in-hand, and should be encouraged at all times.

Don't be Approachable

If the door is closed, employees will be reluctant to come in. The term "open door policy" is important in creating and maintaining a healthy working environment. Employees need to know their manager is approachable and open to their ideas. Provide a friendly, responsive environment for your team and they will reciprocate.

Set Impossible Deadlines

Providing your team with a large project and a deadline of two days, for example, may create stress and exhaustion amongst your staff. If your employees feel overworked, they will quickly lose their motivation and interest.

Hand Out Mundane Tasks

Giving your employees tasks that are uninteresting and lacking in responsibility will only diminish any sense of importance they have within the company. Bye-bye motivation!

Provide Little or No Credit When Credit is Due

When a member of your staff does well, he or she should be rewarded. Whether the reward comes in the form of a compliment, an announcement or even a promotion, knowing the long hours and missed lunch breaks were worth it is extremely important to employee satisfaction. If hard work is not recognized, employees will quickly lose interest and wonder how much worth their hard work has.

Never Recognize a Celebration

While employees are at work to work, it must be recognized that everyone has a life outside of their place of employment. If someone is celebrating 10 years with the company, a birthday, an upcoming marriage or birth, it's nice and appropriate to recognize these special occasions. While it's not mandatory to celebrate employee milestones and celebrations, it can be incredibly effective in keeping employees happy and satisfied.