One of the biggest issues that frustrates our clients is the level of motivation of their employees. Often, they feel their employees are not proactive enough, and that they do not take initiative in their roles.
There are three reasons why this is happening - centred around how you, as their leader, and your managers are communicating to them (and with them) and what type of messages you are sending, and/or they are receiving. In some organisations the mixed signals equate to a labyrinth:
1) They don't know you want them to do something.
2) They are unmotivated and don't care enough to do what they are being asked to do.
3) There are de-motivators in the environment that are preventing them from doing what they have been asked/want to do.
A great resource for understanding and addressing the manifold scenarios that may be causing the performance problem is the book, Analyzing Performance Problems: Or, You Really Oughta Wanna--How to Figure out Why People Aren't Doing What They Should Be, and What to do About It
by Robert Mager.
by Robert Mager. 
