Diagnosing the Unmotivated Employee

One of the biggest challenges a leader faces is trying to motivate the seemingly unmotivated employee. This is especially challenging for managers who are highly intrinsically motivated themselves—those who have little need for external motivators. Perhaps you can relate.

When a team member seems unmotivated, the most common reaction is to assume poor work ethic; but I’d argue that the perceived low motivation is often simply a symptom of one of the five issues outlined below (or a combination of several).

Before labeling an employee as unmotivated, let’s do our best to diagnose and improve the situation by considering these six common causes.

1. Lack of clarity and accountability

You may be surprised to hear that I’ve found this issue to be the most common cause of poor employee performance. Ask yourself these questions:

• Does the employee know what’s expected of them?

• Do they know how their success and performance is measured?

• Do they know how they are currently performing? In other words, do they know they are not meeting your expectations?

If you answered “no” to any of these questions, start here. You can learn more through this short blog post: Creating a Culture of Accountability.

2. Overwhelm

If the work feels overwhelming and the odds of success seem out of reach, the employee may withdraw from the challenge altogether. At the core of this reaction is basic self-preservation.

Many years ago, we gave our daughter the game Jenga for Christmas. She was both excited and anxious as her first game began. If you’ve ever played, then you can imagine how her anxiety continuously increased as the tower grew taller and more wobbly with each player’s move.

It finally became such a perilous structure that she believed there was no way for her to win anymore. She was certain her next move would cause the tower to tumble. And at that moment—consumed with overwhelm and certain of failure—she completely quit the game. No amount of coaxing could bring her back in.

It wasn’t a lack of motivation; it was self-protection from failure. The same can happen at work when overwhelm takes over.

3. Feeling undervalued

I once was coaching a leader with a direct report who came across as both unmotivated and entitled. Quite the combination! You can imagine how frustrated the manager felt.

As we attempted to diagnose the situation, she realized that there was a good chance this employee was feeling undervalued. He had been asking for a promotion for quite some time, and truly believed it was deserved, but his performance did not warrant one. The challenging situation caused her to pull back on providing much attention or positive recognition.

We ran an experiment: she decided to do her best to intentionally boost his sense of value on the team for a few weeks. She assigned him to a big client account, paired with a pep talk: “I think you are the right person for this important account. I’m excited to see what you can do with it.” She also intentionally provided more frequent positive affirmation, even for minor wins.

Guess what? His performance and attitude took a huge turn in the right direction. Feeling valued and important gave him the boost he needed to get back on the right track. Perhaps your employee would benefit from a similar boost.

Check out this Two-Minute Tip for more on making your employees feel seen and valued.

4. Lack of purpose

Humans are motivated by a sense of purpose. While this rings true across all generations, it’s especially valued by today’s youngest workforce members: Millennials and Gen Zers. No purpose or meaning in the work? They’re not interested. On the contrary, give them a deep sense of purpose and you’ll see some of the most committed, motivated employees around.

This Two-Minute Tip shares some of my favorite research on the power of purpose and a simple strategy for fostering it.

5. Low confidence

This one is similar to #2 (overwhelm) but can meddle with motivation even when the workload doesn’t seem overwhelming. If an employee lacks confidence and doesn’t believe in their ability to reach success, it feels safer to retreat, which often comes across as low motivation.

If you suspect low confidence is at play, here are a few ideas:

• Provide more coaching or training

• Communicate your confidence in them

• Ask them to mentor or teach another team member (in an area where they are an expert)

• Set them up for some small wins to gain momentum

• Give more frequent and very specific positive feedback

6. Minimal autonomy

Last, but not least, how much ownership does the employee have over their work? Are they trusted to make decisions and exercise creativity? Without ownership, we don’t have skin in the game. With no skin in the game, there isn’t a great reason to tap into our highest levels of motivation.

Delegate ownership, not just tasks, and you’ll see a spark in motivation. While doing this, just be mindful to not tip them into issue #1 (overwhelm).

Want an example? Here’s a throwback to an old Two-Minute Tip when my husband and I passed all the power to our two young children for a day. Crazy, right?! It was quite the adventure.

Remember, before labeling a team member as unmotivated, let’s do our best to diagnose and improve the situation by considering these five common causes.