Recently, morale in the lab that I work in has been dropping. I don't want to speak for everyone in the lab (there's >10 grad students and >5 postdocs/research faculty), but at least 3 or 4 of the other graduate students and 1 or 2 of the postdocs I've talked with have given me similar opinions.
The general reason I've gotten from everyone is that my adviser -- the head of the lab -- seems to be more and more focused on bringing in as many dollars as possible and growing the size of the lab. I think I can safely say that we're all grateful for his hard work in ensuring our continued support -- funding issues are non-existent -- but as they say, money doesn't always buy happiness. We hold meetings where research is discussed and decisions are made, only for my adviser to come back a few days later and change the decision unilaterally. Several of my grad students have intimated to me that our adviser is (seemingly out of nowhere) threatening to pull their funding if they don't switch projects or publish in short order. And finding time to meet with our adviser is harder and harder -- he's frequently out of town meeting with sponsors, and when we do arrange time he's feeling rushed.
I don't want to pin the blame on him -- like I said, we appreciate the hard work he puts into getting funding for us all -- but it's starting to affect morale I think. I'm not sure how to best tell my adviser -- or even if I should inform my adviser -- about this, and I'd appreciate any advice the Academia S.E. community has.