The Autumn Slump: How Leaders Can Reignite Team Motivation

By Anne‑Maartje Oud

From spotting behaviour changes to clarifying priorities and breaking old routines, discover practical ways to bring motivation back to your team this Autumn.

This time of year can make motivation wobble. Summer is over, the days are getting shorter, and the summer holiday feeling has long gone. People can find themselves in an in-between phase, talking about next year’s plans and projects whilst still trying to madly finish everything before the Christmas holidays.

Workplace behaviour expert, Anne-Maartje Oud, says this is an important time for leaders to pay attention. People rarely announce, “I’m losing my motivation.” Instead, it often shows up in their behaviour: less energy in discussions, fewer ideas, or simply doing what is expected and nothing more. These subtle signs can seem small, which makes them easy to overlook but they can be early indicators of disengagement.

Don’t ignore these signals. Your own behaviour as a leader can make a real difference here. So, what can you do? Here are five things to start with.

1. Find out what demotivates

Look at what has changed and observe the behaviour. Listen to the language people are using. People might become less patient with each other. Are they tired? Are priorities unclear? Is there simply too much or too little work to do?

Take a good look at what happens during an ordinary working day. Where does the energy disappear?

Maybe decisions are discussed three times but still not made. People leave a meeting wondering, “So, what did we actually decide?”

Sometimes motivation drops because people start wondering whether their effort is actually worth it. They begin the week with a clear focus, invest their time and energy, and get things moving. Then someone else changes direction. Again. Suddenly, their work is no longer the priority.

When this keeps happening, people can become reluctant to fully commit. Why invest the energy if the direction may change again tomorrow?

Other things can drain motivation as well, like working incredibly hard to get something finished without anyone acknowledging it, or finding out important information only after everyone else already seems to know.

Once you know what is affecting motivation, you have something concrete to work with and you can start changing what is needed.

2. Clear focus point

People need to know what they are working towards. It sounds obvious, but if you ask five people in the same team what the main priority is right now, you may get five different answers. That creates noise and can quickly take the energy out of the work.

Make the focus visible. Put it on the wall, team board or at the top of your weekly meeting agenda. Use a simple poster or a set of priority cards. Keep coming back to it: This is what we are working towards. This is where we are now. This is what needs our attention this week.

Make it concrete too. “Have a successful end of the year” doesn’t tell people very much. What does success look like? What needs to be finished? What can wait? Who is doing what? How will you know you have made progress?

People are much more likely to keep moving when they can see where they are going. Especially during a busy period, a clear focus helps people decide where to put their time and energy and, just as importantly, what not to spend it on.

3. Show them your energy

You are an example, whether you intend to be or not. People notice how you walk into a meeting, whether you are really listening, the tone of your voice and what happens when someone brings you a problem. They also notice when you are constantly checking your phone, postponing decisions, cancelling one-to-ones or rushing from one meeting to the next looking completely exhausted. Your motivation matters.

So, if you want more energy from your team, look at the energy you are bringing yourself. You may be sitting in the meeting, but already thinking about the end-of-year targets, your next appointment or what you need to pick up from the supermarket. Someone shares an idea, but you are only half listening because your mind is already on the next thing. Walking the talk when it comes to motivation is not about being cheerful and enthusiastic all day. It is about making sure that what you ask from others can also be seen in your own behaviour. Your focus and energy as a leader help create it.

4. Change the patterns

Motivation is also shaped by team habits. Look at the patterns in your meetings because people adapt their behaviour to them. The meeting is always on the same day, the same people dominate them, difficult subjects are avoided and complaints happen afterwards in the corridor. The same people speak first in every meeting, so the others wait. Someone disagrees with a decision but doesn’t say anything until afterwards. A deadline is clearly unrealistic, yet everybody says, “Yes, we’ll make it work.” Or there is that subject everyone knows is causing irritation, but somehow, it never makes it onto the table. These patterns gradually become “how we do things here.”

As a leader, don’t let them pass. If someone is quiet, invite them in: “Sophie, I haven’t heard you yet. What do you think?” If everybody agrees suspiciously quickly, check it: “Are we really all behind this, or are we being polite?” You can invite them to change: “Let’s do this differently. For the next 10 minutes, I want to hear everything that is wrong with this decision. No solutions, no positives. Just put all the negatives on the table.”

If every Monday morning meeting starts the same way: people arrive tired, cameras stay off, there is little energy and it takes half the meeting before everyone really gets going, don’t just accept it as “how Mondays are.” Ask what can change. Perhaps a later time or different day would work better.

5. Feel the autumn vibe

This might sound like an unusual one, but if the shops can make a whole season out of autumn, so can you. Pumpkin spice coffee, candles, warm socks and hot chocolate, why can’t you use a little of that at work?

Sometimes changing the energy in a team does not have to be complicated. I recently heard about an organisation that gave everyone warm socks. Nothing strategic about it. No programme, no big announcement. Just warm socks. But people put them on, laughed about it and started talking to each other. And for a moment, the atmosphere changed.

Turn the countdown to an important deadline into an advent calendar. Take your next team meeting outside for an autumn walk. Bring hot chocolate with marshmallows instead of having yet another coffee next to the laptop. Put some snacks on the table to get people talking when they walk into the meeting room.

Of course, a pumpkin spice latte will not solve a problem in the project. But if people are simply tired, stuck in the same routine or spending too many hours behind their screens, do something different.

Conclusion

You might feel a bit of an after-summer dip or the first signs of the winter blues. But this time in between can actually be a wonderful moment for you and your team. Use it. Look around, reconnect, have the conversations you have been postponing and bring some fresh energy back into how you work together.

And remember sometimes a small change in what people do can, changes the atmosphere surprisingly quickly. Give people a reason to get up, talk, laugh or do something together. You might be surprised by what a pair of warm socks can do.

About the Author

Anne‑Maartje Oud is a workplace behaviour specialist, founder and CEO of The Behaviour Company and author of WHAT TO DO IF…? How to Handle Any Situation at Work and Come Out Winning published by Kogan Page.