This is the time of the year that something subtle but decisive begins to happen inside organisations. The speeches are over. The strategy decks have been shared. The symbolic language of “new beginnings” has largely run its course. What remains is behaviour. This is the moment when leadership stops being aspirational and becomes observable. Not in grand gestures, but in small, repeated choices that either reinforce readiness or quietly erode it.
Last week’s column argued that readiness, not resolution, determines the year. This week’s focus moves one step deeper. Once readiness has been acknowledged, January begins to test leadership discipline. It tests whether leaders can hold steady when urgency returns, whether they can protect focus when noise re-enters, and whether they can model consistency when the temptation to revert to old habits grows stronger.
History offers a familiar pattern. Many organisational failures do not occur because leaders lacked insight in January. They occur because leaders abandoned that insight by February. Discipline, far more than intelligence or intent, is what carries early clarity into sustained performance.
In psychological terms, this phase is where cognitive dissonance emerges. Leaders know what they said mattered. They know the tone they set earlier in the month. But now competing demands arrive. Investors want speed. Boards want evidence. Teams want certainty. The pressure to shortcut reflection and default to command quietly increases. This is where leadership credibility is either strengthened or compromised.
One of the most common discipline failures at this stage is decision dilution. Leaders reopen conversations that were already settled, often in response to anxiety rather than new information. While this may feel adaptive, teams experience it as instability. People begin to hedge, waiting for the next reversal. Momentum slows, not because people lack capability, but because they lack confidence that today’s direction will survive tomorrow’s meeting.
Effective leaders understand that discipline does not mean rigidity. It means honouring decisions unless there is a compelling reason to change them, and when change is required, naming it explicitly. Stability of direction creates psychological safety, and psychological safety is what allows people to execute without constantly scanning for risk.
Another test of leadership discipline in mid-January is attention management. What leaders consistently pay attention to becomes the organisation’s real priority, regardless of what was announced earlier. If a leader says people’s wellbeing matters but only asks about numbers, the message is clear. If collaboration is praised but only individual performance is rewarded, culture follows incentives, not speeches.
This is why disciplined leaders audit their own behaviour during this period. They listen to how they ask questions, notice what they interrupt, and observe where they show impatience. These signals travel faster than any formal communication. In complex organisations, people take their cues less from policy and more from proximity to power.
There is also a quieter discipline that matters deeply in January: the discipline of emotional regulation. Leaders often underestimate how much their internal state shapes the environment around them. When leaders carry unresolved stress into the new year, it leaks. It shows up as irritability, defensiveness, or urgency that feels disproportionate to the situation. Teams feel this immediately, even if they cannot articulate it.
The most effective leaders use this period to regulate themselves before attempting to regulate others. They create space to think, not as a luxury, but as a responsibility. They understand that clarity is not produced under constant reactivity. In doing so, they model a pace that allows others to bring their best judgement forward rather than their fastest response.
For workplace professionals and emerging leaders, this phase offers a valuable lesson. Leadership is not proven in moments of launch; it is proven in moments of maintenance. Can you sustain the standards you introduced? Can you resist the pull of performative urgency? Can you remain consistent when no one is applauding restraint?
Several reflective questions are worth sitting with this week. Where are you most tempted to compromise clarity for speed? Which decisions have you quietly reopened, and why? What are people learning from what you consistently react to? These questions are uncomfortable precisely because they are diagnostic.
Practically, leaders who navigate this phase well tend to do a few things instinctively. They slow-key decisions just enough to ensure alignment without stalling progress. They revisit expectations privately with their leadership teams to reinforce consistency. They protect time for thinking rather than filling every moment with meetings. None of this is dramatic, but all of it is consequential.
As January advances, the organisations that will outperform are not the loudest or the fastest. They are the most coherent. Their leaders are predictable in the best sense of the word. People know what matters, how decisions are made, and what will not suddenly change without explanation. This coherence reduces friction and frees energy for execution.
The challenge for this week is simple but not easy. Audit your discipline. Notice where you are being pulled away from the leadership posture you committed to earlier this month. Correct gently but decisively. Choose consistency over intensity. Choose coherence over urgency.
Leadership is not sustained by how convincingly a year is launched but by how faithfully its early standards are maintained. If you can hold discipline now, the rest of the year will not require constant repair. It will require leadership, practised quietly, repeatedly, and with intention.
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
