Taking over a new team always brings challenges, but inheriting a demoralised team is especially tricky. You can often spot pretty quickly that morale isn’t where you want it to be, but understanding the detail of what’s causing it and how deep it goes is key if you want to tackle it effectively.
Here are five warning signs to watch out for - and you'll often see several of these happening together:
1. Silence and Caution in Meetings
Beyond the obvious silence when you ask for input, watch for selective participation. Team members might contribute to safe, operational discussions but become notably quiet when more strategic or challenging topics are brought up. This can be a sign they've learnt from bitter experience that speaking up either makes no difference or comes with negative consequences.
2. Apathy in Decision Making
Surface level agreement might mean you assume people are all in favour of what’s being discussed. But a demoralised team often shows a particular form of agreement - a "whatever you think" attitude. When you’re used to things going in whatever direction has been proposed regardless of what you say, it can be hard to care enough to outwardly disagree. It’s not that they think the decision is right, they just don’t feel their input matters.
This is often accompanied with out of the room discussions where the real disagreement is voiced, and a distinct lack of buy in when ‘agreed’ decisions move to the action stage.
3. Problem-Focused Discussions
Some conversations are very obviously negative. But others are sneakier. What appear to be productive discussions about why things aren't working can focus endlessly on ‘troubleshooting’ and analysing problems rather than moving towards solutions.
Motivated teams tend to quickly shift from problem identification to solution mode, sometimes not spending long enough in the first stage. Demotivated teams are often stuck in a negative mindset so find it much easier to see and discuss problems but will struggle to move on to what to do to overcome or get around challenges. It can act as a socially acceptable way to vent frustrations.
4. Self-Censoring at Critical Moments
Sometimes conversations build momentum and feel productive but then stop abruptly when they reach crucial points. Team members might raise issues but pull back from the conversation, not wanting to be accused of being negative or pointing the finger. They might start to share concerns but trail off without fully articulating them.
This reluctance to 'put their head above the parapet' can be a signal that people are apprehensive about the messenger being shot, or that genuine concerns will be treated as moaning and whinging
5. Increasing Isolation
If there’s a lack of collaboration either within the team, with other departments, or both then it can signal that those interactions are hard work. When people retreat into working alone, it's often because team interactions have become draining rather than energising. This isolation can masquerade as efficiency - "it's just quicker to do it myself" - but actually signals a breakdown in team dynamics.
Spotting these patterns is your starting point for tackling team demoralisation. But don't rush to fix things just yet. These visible signs often point to deeper issues that you'll need to understand properly before you can address them effectively.
Understanding What's Really Going On
Common causes of team demoralisation aren't hard to spot. Lack of clarity about what's expected, limited development opportunities, poor resource management, toxic dynamics between team members - the list goes on. But rushing to fix what seems obvious can be a mistake.
Take lack of clarity as an example. You might spot conflicting priorities between different stakeholders and assume sorting those out will fix the issue. But dig a bit deeper and you might find the team tried to raise this before. They might have suggested solutions that were ignored, or been told to 'just make it work'. In which case the real issue isn't the lack of clarity itself - it's that the team's previous attempts to resolve it were dismissed.
Or you might see people haven't developed new skills in ages and assume there's been no investment in development. But when you look closer you find there were training programmes and workshops, just delivered in a way that didn't work for the team or without the followup support to embed the learning.
So resist jumping to conclusions about what's causing the issues you can see. Instead, get curious about how things have got to where they are. Some useful questions to explore:
What's been tried before?
What was the impact?
What gets in the way of making improvements?
Where do people feel stuck?
What would make the biggest difference if it changed?
Don't turn these questions into an interrogation or witch hunt. You're not trying to assign blame or identify everything that's wrong. You're trying to understand what's contributed to where things are now so you can work with the team to make things better.
This is where one to one conversations become really valuable. People will often share things individually that they won't say in a group setting. Not because they're telling tales, but because they might not be sure if others see things the same way they do. Or because they don't want to be seen as negative or difficult.
Pay attention to what's not being said as well as what is. If someone's describing a situation or challenge, notice what they're assuming you already know or what they're tiptoeing around. Sometimes the real issues are in the gaps of the conversation rather than what's explicitly shared.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
When you inherit a demoralised team it can feel like a lot of pressure to turn things around. That pressure often leads to some pretty common mistakes that can make things worse rather than better.
Making Quick Promises
The temptation to reassure your team by promising that things will change is huge. You want to start off on a positive note and show that you'll be different to whoever came before. But making promises before you properly understand what's going on is risky. If you can't deliver on those promises - or worse, if you find out later that they weren't the right things to promise - you'll damage trust rather than build it.
Criticising Previous Leadership
Even if your predecessor left a lot to be desired, criticising them won't help. For a start, some of your team members might have got on well with them. But more importantly, you'll create a culture where it feels acceptable to run down leaders behind their back. Given you're now the leader, that's probably not what you want.
Trying to Fix Everything Yourself
Taking ownership of fixing team morale might feel like the right thing to do. After all, isn't that what leaders are for? But you’re a leader, not a parent. You need to solve problems with your team, not for them. The team needs to be part of creating the solution - both because they'll have insights you don't have, and because being involved in fixing things can help rebuild their sense of agency and control.
Taking Action: Where to Start
When you've spotted the signs of a demoralised team and taken time to understand what's really going on, you need to take action. Here are some options for approaches that can help you work with the team to turn things around.
Start With What Works
A simple but effective approach is to run a What's Working Well / Even Better If session (often shortened to WWW/EBI). It's a structured way to have conversations about improvement without falling into negativity.
Ask the team to share what's working well right now - what do they want to keep or build on? Then switch to what could work 'even better if' you made some changes. The language matters here - using 'even better if' rather than 'what's wrong' or 'what needs fixing' helps maintain a constructive tone.
Sometimes you'll find things that worked well in the past but have dropped away. Quick wins can often come from reintroducing practices or approaches that the team already knows work for them.
Get to Know People Properly
No, you don’t need to pry into people’s personal lives. But you do need to make an effort to understand what makes each of your team tick. Have proper career conversations; what's their story? What motivates them? What do they want from their career? If nobody's asked these questions before, showing genuine interest in them as individuals can be powerful.
Don't expect everyone to open up straight away - some people will be more forthcoming than others. When they do share their aspirations, be honest about what's possible and what isn't. And be honest if you can’t yet gauge what’s possible. But don’t dodge the conversations for fear that you can’t offer what they want. Understanding what drives different team members doesn’t just help show interest, it helps inform other conversations about improvements and changes.
Map Out Effort vs Impact
The effort-impact matrix is a great tool for group discussion. Get the team to plot different aspects of their work based on how much effort things take versus the impact they have. High impact, low effort tasks are your quick wins. High impact, high effort items are your bigger projects. Low impact work, regardless of effort, might need questioning.
This exercise helps highlight what's draining people's energy versus what energises them. It often reveals tasks that feel like hard work but don't add much value, or identifies better ways to achieve the same results. It's also a practical way to prioritise improvements and changes rather than trying to fix everything at once.
Final Thoughts
Whether you’re in a new role, taking on additional responsibilities or have been asked to integrate demoralised team members into your existing team, there are going to be challenges. It takes patience to resist diving in with solutions, and resilience to hear difficult messages without getting defensive. But if you take time to understand what's really going on, avoid the common pitfalls, and involve the team in creating solutions, you can start to rebuild trust and engagement.
Thinking about this strategically rather than rushing to fix everything might feel slower, but generate a greater return. Teams become demoralised over time, and it takes time to turn things around. Focus on building momentum through smaller changes rather than aiming for overnight transformation.
If you'd like support with taking over a new team or addressing team morale, get in touch to discuss how coaching could help you navigate this challenge effectively.