⏱ 5 min read

In a rush? Here is the quick overview.
The issue

The Monday blues aren't just a cliché. Research has found that employee energy can drop on Monday, while job satisfaction tends to be lower and workplace stressors more noticeable at the beginning of the workweek.

And there's something particularly interesting for leaders: positive anticipation of work can help soften the Monday drop in energy.

Best practices for you as the leader
  • Give Monday morning a positive kick-start with a short team or individual check-in.
  • Help people get clear on their priorities rather than immediately piling on more demands.
  • Encourage your team to plan Monday before they leave on Friday.
  • Model habits that help you start your own week with energy.
  • Pay attention to what your team is anticipating when they think about returning to work.
Key takeaway

You can't eliminate the Monday blues, but you can influence how your team experiences the transition back into the workweek.

The Problem at Hand

It's Monday morning, and your team is struggling to get started.

You can see it -  energy is low and people are moving a little slower. Maybe you're feeling it yourself.

As their leader, you need to get the team moving.

So what do you do?

First, recognize that the Monday blues aren't just in our heads.

A 2021 study by Oliver Weigelt, Katja Siestrup, and Roman Prem followed 87 employees over 12 days, collecting more than 2,100 observations. They found a distinct pattern in employee energy: it increased over the weekend, dropped on Monday, stayed relatively flat from Monday through Thursday, and increased again on Friday.

Another study, involving 139 employees and 681 daily observations, found that employees reported lower job satisfaction and more workplace stressors at the beginning of the workweek than later in the week.

So yes, Monday can be different.

But one finding from the Weigelt research particularly caught my attention as a leader:

Positive anticipation of work helped reduce the Monday drop in vitality.

In other words, how people feel about what they're returning to matters.

And that's where we, as leaders, come in.

The LeDev Advice

Ah, yes...as a leader, I've seen my share of slow Mondays.

And let's be clear: it wasn't just my teams that struggled. Sometimes I did, too!

(BTW: if you're the one fighting the Monday blues, I have another article for you: Not Feeling It).

But when it's your team that needs a little help getting started, there are things you can do. Here are a few that worked for me.

1. Give Monday morning a kick-start

Depending on the size and structure of your team, consider starting Monday with either short individual check-ins or a brief team meeting.

Individual check-ins: 10–15 minutes max

This isn't the time for a lengthy performance conversation. The objective is to connect and help the person get centered for the week.

  • Say hello, preferably face-to-face or by video.
  • Bring some positive energy to the conversation.
  • Ask them to talk through their priorities for the week.
  • Find out if there's anything getting in their way.
  • Offer encouragement or help where needed.

Sometimes 10 minutes with a leader is all someone needs to shift gears.

Team check-in: 30 minutes max

For larger teams, use the energy of the group.

  • Reconnect everyone after the weekend.
  • Share something positive, motivational, or useful.
  • Reinforce the team's most important objectives for the week.
  • Give people an opportunity to share what they're focused on.
  • Look around the room. Who seems unusually quiet or disengaged? Follow up privately later.

One word of caution: Don't turn your Monday kick-start into a Monday beat-down.

If everyone's first experience of the workweek is being grilled about numbers, challenged about last week's misses, or pressured into making heavy commitments, consider what you're teaching them to anticipate every Sunday night.

2. Teach people how to kick-start themselves

As leaders, we shouldn't be responsible for manufacturing everyone's motivation every Monday morning. BUT we can help people develop habits that make the transition into the workweek easier.

Here are a few things you can teach your peeps to do for themselves:

  • Start with something positive. What are you excited about this week? What are you looking forward to today?
  • Plan Monday on Friday. Before leaving for the weekend, identify your Monday priorities. For bigger tasks, decide when and how you'll tackle them. Instead of spending Monday morning figuring out where to begin, you can simply begin.
  • Start with something you enjoy. When possible, don't make the task you dread most the very first thing you do Monday morning. Give yourself a chance to build some momentum.
  • Keep your sleep schedule reasonably consistent. A dramatically different weekend sleep schedule can make getting started Monday morning harder.
  • Put something enjoyable on Monday's calendar. Lunch with someone you like. A walk. Your favorite workout. Dinner out. Give yourself something to look forward to beyond simply getting through the workday.

And, of course, model these habits yourself. Your team notices how you arrive on Monday, too.

3. Pay attention to what your team anticipates

This may be the most useful lesson from the research.

It's easy to think of the Monday blues as an employee problem:

"Ugh, my team is tired again this Monday. They had too much fun over the weekend. They need to get focused.”

Instead, try asking yourself:

"What does my team anticipate when they think about coming to work on Monday?”

Do they anticipate pressure? Criticism? Endless meetings? An overflowing inbox? Another week of unclear priorities?

Or do they anticipate seeing people they enjoy working with, knowing what's expected of them, doing meaningful work, making progress, and having a leader who will help when they get stuck?

Of course, you won't eliminate every Monday blue. Some Mondays are simply going to feel like Mondays.

But you have a lot of influence over the environment your people return to each week.

So, next Monday, remember to give your team a little grace on Monday morning. And give yourself some, too.

Then, help everyone get moving!

Summary

The Monday blues are real enough to show up in workplace research.

But the research also gives leaders something useful to work with: what employees anticipate about returning to work matters.

You don't need balloons, doughnuts, motivational speeches, or forced Monday enthusiasm.

Connect with your people. Help them get clear on what's important. Remove obstacles. Create some positive momentum. And think carefully about the experience you're creating for them at the beginning of each week.

Because if your team consistently dreads Monday, the question isn't only how to motivate them.

It may also be worth asking what they're coming back to.

Sources

Weigelt, O., Siestrup, K., & Prem, R. (2021). Continuity in transition: Combining recovery and day-of-week perspectives to understand changes in employee energy across the 7-day week. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 42(5), 567–586. DOI: 10.1002/job.2514.

Pindek, S., Zhou, Z. E., Kessler, S. R., Krajcevska, A., & Spector, P. E. (2021). Workdays are not created equal: Job satisfaction and job stressors across the workweek. Human Relations, 74(9), 1447–1472. DOI: 10.1177/0018726720924444.