January has a peculiar way of seducing leaders into premature optimism. It has a way of giving leaders emotional relief without operational clarity. Calendars reset, inboxes thin out briefly, strategy decks get rebranded, and language like “fresh start” and “new momentum” enters executive conversations with renewed confidence.
Yet, by the third or fourth week of the year, many leaders feel a familiar drag returning. The urgency dulls. The energy fades. The same conversations resurface. Meetings feel heavier than expected. Decisions stall. Teams comply, but they do not fully commit. The problem is rarely the plan. It is the illusion that time alone creates transformation. It is not because January failed. It is because leadership attempted a reset without reckoning.
In my work across boardrooms, executive teams, and leadership cohorts globally, I have learnt that most leadership resets are cosmetic. They change direction without addressing residue. They introduce vision without confronting what still weighs on people psychologically, emotionally, and structurally. A new year does not cleanse unresolved tension. It merely exposes it faster. When leadership avoids confronting unresolved dynamics from the previous year, the new one simply amplifies them. A new fiscal cycle does not dissolve mistrust, misalignment, or fatigue. It carries them forward, often under the false promise of renewal.
The success of last week’s column on leadership closure struck a nerve because leaders recognised something uncomfortable: unfinished leadership does not disappear at year-end. It carries forward quietly, influencing trust, execution, and morale. This week’s focus builds on that insight. Closure is necessary, but it is not sufficient. What follows closure must be recalibration. Without it, leaders attempt to move forward with teams that are emotionally misaligned, cognitively overloaded, and operationally unclear. That is not momentum. That is friction disguised as progress. So, what organisations need in January is not motivation. They need alignment.
Organisational psychology consistently shows that performance dips in the first quarter when leaders assume readiness instead of verifying it. People may nod in meetings, but internally they are reconciling unresolved questions. What actually changed? What stayed the same? What is safe to say now? What is expected but unstated? When leaders do not address these questions explicitly, employees answer them privately, often inaccurately, and alignment fractures silently.
Early last year, I advised the executive committee of a financial services firm that prided itself on speed. Every new year, they unveiled ambitious priorities and demanded immediate execution. They launched in January with a bold strategic pivot, complete with refreshed values and aggressive targets. On paper, it was compelling. However, the leaders never acknowledged the cumulative weight of last year’s trade-offs, unkept promises, or unresolved tensions. Senior leaders were still carrying resentment from unaddressed conflicts the previous year, middle managers were unclear about shifting priorities, and frontline teams felt whiplash from constant change. People were being asked to sprint while still recovering from the previous marathon. By March, performance lagged not because the strategy was flawed, but because the leadership failed to realign the human system before accelerating it.
Effective leadership resets begin with acknowledgement, not aspiration. Leaders must name what people are still carrying before asking them to carry something new. This requires courage because it means resisting the temptation to perform optimism while avoiding difficult truths. It means asking questions leaders often postpone: What assumptions followed us into this year? What tensions did we normalise instead of resolve? Where did silence replace honesty?
Alignment is not agreement. It is a shared clarity. When leaders skip this step, they unintentionally create what I call organisational dissonance. Alignment, however, requires more than a conversation. It requires behavioural consistency. Leaders often underestimate how closely teams watch what happens in the first thirty days of the year. Who gets listened to? What decisions are revisited or ignored? Which behaviours are corrected and which are tolerated? These signals shape belief far more powerfully than vision statements ever will.
Practically, leadership alignment in January requires deliberate behavioural shifts. Leaders must slow the opening weeks of the year enough to listen. This is not about extended retreats or elaborate frameworks. It is about focused conversations that surface reality. High-performing leaders recalibrate expectations explicitly, clarify decision rights early, and revisit unresolved commitments before layering on new ones. They understand that speed without alignment creates friction, not momentum.
This is where many leaders struggle. There is pressure to appear decisive, energised, and forward-looking. Yet the most effective leaders I know enter January grounded rather than performative. They do not rush to inspire before they stabilise. They recognise that people cannot give their best to the future while quietly negotiating the past.
For leaders reading this, a moment of honest reflection is required. Are you leading a reset or orchestrating a restart without repair? Have you mistaken enthusiasm for alignment? Are you assuming clarity that was never explicitly created? Are unresolved issues being avoided in the name of positivity? These questions are not indictments. They are invitations.
The strongest leadership transitions are marked by precision, not noise. Teams respond not to lofty declarations but to leaders who demonstrate coherence between words, actions, and unresolved realities. When leaders take responsibility for alignment, execution accelerates naturally because resistance dissolves.
As the new year unfolds, the real leadership challenge is not how boldly you start, but how truthfully you recalibrate. The quality of your leadership this year will hinge less on how compelling your strategy sounds and more on how grounded your leadership feels.
The invitation this week is simple but demanding. Before demanding performance, ensure readiness. Before inspiring action, establish clarity. Before accelerating, recalibrate the human system you are asking to deliver results.
About the author:
Dr Toye Sobande is a strategic leadership expert, executive coach, lawyer, public speaker, and award-winning author. He is the CEO of Stephens Leadership Consultancy LLC, a strategy and management consulting firm offering creative insights and solutions to businesses and leaders. Email: contactme@toyesobande.com
