Your Energy Sets the Tone. What Happens When It’s Low?
Low morale doesn’t sit quietly in the corner — it spreads.
Initiative dries up. Even easy tasks feel like pushing boulders uphill.
And here’s the truth most leaders avoid: morale is just as contagious at the top.
When you’re the one holding the team together, your energy sets the tone. If it’s heavy, the whole department feels it. If it’s flat, the team goes flat. Gallup research shows managers drive up to 70% of engagement variance — meaning the mood you bring to work isn’t just yours. It trickles down to become theirs, too.
But here’s the trap: instead of naming their own strain, many leaders try to hold it in. They attempt to absorb stress. They try to shield their teams. They pretend to project composure they don’t feel.
It starts with good intentions but ends with eroding trust.
Because the dissonance is obvious — your team can feel the weight, even if you never say it out loud.
“Holding it together” holds you back
One senior executive I coach — let’s call her Dana — was in the middle of a messy transition.
Her org had lost a key team leader who’d held deep institutional knowledge, and no suitable replacement was in sight.
Dana took on the work herself, in an attempt to absorb the friction and protect the rest of the team from fallout. At the same time, she was navigating a tragic personal loss.
While she thought she looked composed, to me, she admitted:
“If I stop holding it together, I don’t know who will.”
But the problem wasn’t her resilience — it was her silence. Her team had no words for the negativity they felt. They didn’t know if she noticed, or if she expected them to just power through.
Decisions stalled. Opportunities were missed. The team was left guessing.
Dana was trying to protect her people, but by refusing to acknowledge her own struggles, she was ultimately dragging them down with her.
Together, we worked on a different approach: naming the reality without catastrophizing it.
She didn’t need to “fall apart.” She just needed to stop pretending she wasn’t carrying anything at all.
Emotional honesty is a leadership skill
Even when you aren’t navigating the loss of core talent like Dana was — a topic I wrote recently about in Harvard Business Review — morale and engagement always need attention.
But leaders often fear that acknowledging tension will undermine stability.
The opposite is true.
When you say: “This is hard. We’re not ignoring it. And we’re going to find our way through together.”
You give your team permission to both tell the truth and keep moving. That combination — acknowledgment plus direction — is what keeps people engaged in uncertainty.
But pretending everything is fine when it’s obviously not makes your team come to their own conclusions about what’s wrong — or, worse: question what else you’re not saying.
How to lead through low morale (yours included)
If you’re carrying low energy — or seeing it ripple through your team — here are a few places to start:
Ground yourself first.
Even ten minutes of reflection can shift your footing. Ask:What am I carrying that’s affecting how I’m showing up?
What do I need to stay steady this week?
Name the moment.
Acknowledge what’s hard without overplaying it. You don’t have to linger on the problems, but be direct about what they are. Clarity calms more than false optimism.Check in with intention.
Instead of vague “How’s everyone doing?” try prompts like:What’s been taking the most energy?
Where are we seeing momentum we can build on?
These moves don’t erase the pressure. But they turn low morale from a silent weight into a shared reality you can handle — together.
You don’t have to fake resilience
Low morale isn’t a leadership failure. It’s a signal — one that points to what needs attention, not what needs to be hidden.
If you find yourself “holding it together” without much left to hold, it’s time to reset. For yourself, and for the team that takes its cues from you.