How to demotivate your people guaranteed
Who doesn't want that: a highly motivated team in which everyone contributes with full energy and joy to achieve common goals. But in everyday life, there are always factors that demotivate us. Volkmar Völzke reveals what these are in his new Success Impulse.
Basically, we are all motivated. But we are all demotivated again and again by all kinds of factors (especially by leadership). Therefore, it is your important task as a leader to stop demotivation again and again and thereby indirectly increase the motivation of your people. Here are five things through which you demotivate your people:
1. treat your people like children
I know it sounds provocative, but many managers treat their people like children. This is expressed in language ("Why did you do it that way and not differently?") and also in many rules, regulations and strong control. If you declare your people to be immature, they will behave that way. And just because there were one or two cases where more control was needed, you don't take everyone else into clannish custody by issuing more regulations.
2. always give answers immediately
It may sound strange, but if you always give immediate answers to all questions, you demotivate others. This is because you deprive others of the chance to come up with answers and solutions themselves. If you do this consistently, your people will come to you before they have even thought about it. This is anything but motivating and leads straight to service by the book.
3. postpone decisions
I see this very often - especially in leadership teams: decisions are repeatedly postponed, or they simply peter out. Or the decision is not communicated. People notice that: "They up there don't decide anything anyway!" It's demotivating. Every motivating leadership is decision-making.
4. be afraid to be clear
It's amazing, but many leaders are afraid of too much clarity. Because then you have to stand by your statement. Unclarity, on the other hand, keeps some options open. The only thing is that lack of clarity creates uncertainty and demotivates your people. Behind this is often the need to be liked a lot. But that is not good leadership. Sometimes you simply have to "show the edge". If you use this correctly, it has a motivating effect. Ambiguity always has the opposite effect.
5. do not tackle unpleasant things
If you don't tackle unpleasant issues, you demotivate your people. In the end, these are the famous "skeletons in the closet" that eventually start to stink. By the way, a common example of this are decisions about people who should not stay in your team in the long run.
Conclusion: If you stop these five things, your people's motivation will go up. Try it out.
To the author:
Volkmar Völzke is a success maximizer. Book author. Consultant. Coach. Speaker. www.volkmarvoelzke.ch
