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The 10 Best Ways to Demotivate the People You Work With

Of all the dynamics you handle as a leader, leading people is by far the most challenging.

Very few leaders I know actively set out to discourage their team, yet all of us do it—most often unintentionally.

There’s an edge that comes with being a leader. You see problems others miss. You also see opportunities. You’re passionate. And most days, you’re driven.

And while these are great things, they also have a shadow side.

Sometimes as a leader when you think you’re doing the right thing, you’re doing the wrong thing. When you think you’re motivating people, you’re doing the opposite.

So how do you end up demotivating people in leadership?

Here are the 10 very common ways leaders do it all the time.

And in case you think I’m judging, I’ve made most of these mistakes more than once. Experience is a great teacher—if you listen.

1. Make your team do the work but steal all the credit

When a church or organization is small, you end up doing the lion’s share of the work as a leader. As a result, you get a lot of the credit when things go well.

It’s easy to get addicted to receiving credit.

But naturally, as an organization grows, more and more people do the work you used to do. That’s as it should be. The best leaders do less every year, focusing on their core strengths.

This becomes a pivot point for every leader. Insecure leaders will still want all the credit, and they’ll do whatever it takes to receive it.

One sure way to demotivate your team is to make them do the work but steal all the credit.

Secure leaders love to push other people into the spotlight. Insecure leaders don’t.

If your team is doing the work, give them the credit.

2. Micromanage people

Micromanaging only seems attractive to micromanagers. It’s never attractive to the micromanaged.

So why do leaders micromanage?

Sometimes it’s a control issue. But often it arises because a leader doesn’t know how to scale an organization.

When a church or organization is small, you can know all the details and sometimes you should know all the details.

Many leaders become addicted to knowing all the details and being in on all the decisions. And they simply can’t let go.

As a result, they’ll only ever attract followers, not true leaders. And they’ll artificially shrink the size of their organization to the span of their control.

3. Be disorganized

Disorganization demotivates. Period.

If the event you’re attending is disorganized, you want to leave early (or take over).

If the hotel you’re staying is disorganized (no rooms available when they promised … the rooms aren’t clean and the valet takes 30 minutes to find your car), you want your money back.

If you’re disorganized, you make it exceedingly difficult for your team to succeed.

One the greatest things you can do for your team as a leader is to become more organized the more your organization grows.

You should get better at order, not worse, even though the task of leadership becomes more complex and demanding.

If you do the hard work of figuring that out, you’ll be a much better leader.

Here are some of my top time management tips that have helped me become much more organized.

4. Change your mind … constantly

I can be impulsive. I’m not alone in that in leadership.

Too many leaders direct their organizations according to their whims.

Every time the leader:

reads a new book

attends a conference

studies a new model

wakes up with a new idea

… the organization changes course.

This exhausts your team.

No leader builds a great future by changing course every few months.

The truly great ones find an effective strategy and stick with it.

5. Be unclear

Leadership is complex and often confusing.

So it’s natural to not be 100 percent certain.

Even when you’re not certain as a leader, you can be clear. Just be honest with people that you’re not sure about the long-term course, but in the meantime, tell them the three things you’re going to focus on.

Your team needs clarity. No one can follow ambiguity.