What are the common demotivating factors?

I am no HR or motivational guru, so the factors I am listing here are not based on any research. They are based more on my personal experience. I acted as a manager quite early in my career, and reached a conclusion that i would serve myself and the industry better by continuing my career as an engineer. Since, I have worked with the best known employers in the software industry. So, I have faced the motivational issues on either side, as an engineer who felt demotivated, and as a manager who is fighting to motivate the team. Many factors i mention below are probably specific to the Indian software industry, as it is dominated by low-end outsourced work, though it is changing for the better.

Key Demotivating Factors
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1. High degree of uncertainty/Lack of long term vision/goals - I am sure most readers are aware of SMART goals. Almost every goal setting document has a section on long term goals, but I have rarely seen a genuine interest on the part of managers to help the team members in meeting their long term goals. I think it is because often engineers become managers by virtue of the number of years they have put in, and are just not capable of thinking beyond running the business. In the absence of long term goals, any lull in the projects/work at hand leads to a high degree of uncertainty in the team - "What will i be doing 2 weeks from now". Note that this is not the same as job insecurity.

2. Loss of trust/Double Speak - I guess Microsoft would have lost quite a few senior engineers in the Internet division since it announced its intention to takeover Yahoo. I am sure even a month before the announcement, there would have been all hands meets where they would toast the successes, and paint a rosy future.

A common experience in India is - when big product companies set up shop in India, they would call it - "Centre of Excellence", "Centre of Innovation" - and tell you 10 great reasons why it is a great place to work. However, most of them often turn out to be job shops, with only low end maintenance work available. This inevitably ends up demotivating bright engineers.

3. Lack of visible leadership accountability - It would be preposterous to claim that there isn't leadership accountability. However, it can be demotivating an engineer does not see visible outcomes of a manager/leader not meeting expectations. Also demotivating is a perception that the manager is not accountable to the engineers for their growth.

4. Wrong fit - Hiring over/under-qualified personnel, no matter what the compulsions, more often than not leads to a demotivated workforce.

5. Micro-management - I think this one needs no elaboration

I am sure I can list a lot more demotivating factors. And these factors would certainly vary from person to person. Also, i am sure no manager intends to demotivate her own team members.

I think a sincere effort at identifying why a person is demotivated (when you find someone's motivation levels are low) - and it has to be aimed at each team member individually (as opposed to a why my team is demotivated approach) - goes a long way in coming out with an individualised motivation program - which could be :

- Individualised incentive schemes
- Finding a better fit in another team
- Reorienting long term goals

For this to happen though, there needs to be serious leadership commitment and initiative. As long as there are SMART goals (aimed at keeping the team motivated) that line managers are accountable for, motivation should come easy. Of course, this assumes that the engineer didn't make a short term call when joining the organization in the first place.