Today's post is an article written by ProContractor Supply CEO Abhi Singh, and published on HBSDealer. We encourage you to check out the article on the HBSDealer website, in addition to reading it here.
It’s January. The calendar has flipped, the holidays are officially over, and the business is back in motion. Emails are stacking up. Phones are ringing. Texts are chiming. Vendors are clamoring at your door to set a 2026 “plan.” Meetings are back on the calendar. And for most senior leaders, the year already feels familiar.
That’s the point.
Look: the New Year doesn’t magically fix … anything.
It doesn’t reset culture, improve execution or eliminate bad habits. All it really does is reset the scoreboard and give you a short window to decide whether you will make this year different—or whether you’ll accept the same behaviors, excuses and self-convincing rationale to avoid the hard decisions that you did last year.
You’ll determine quickly what you will tolerate. While you’re committed to making positive improvements today, will you still be committed while you’re drinking green beer in March?
The 3:17am Test
A new year isn’t about motivation; it’s about executing on the thing that wakes you up at 3:17 every morning and doesn’t allow you to go back to sleep. Know what I’m talking about? If so, I feel your pain. If not, call me at 3:25 a.m. next Wednesday—I guarantee you I’ll be awake.
The most important decision to make right now is simple, yet incredibly hard: What are you no longer willing to tolerate? What did you let slide last year because you couldn’t risk making a change? Was it fear of the unknown? Fear of having to dive back into the business deeper? Fear of getting out of your comfort zone?
Urgent vs. Important
One of the biggest leadership mistakes I see—and I still make with stubborn consistency—is confusing urgent with important. Urgent screams at me, driving me nuts, while the important still whispers.
It’s like getting worked up over the thermostat in your house being set at 75 degrees while avoiding the open window in your office.
- Urgent is the issue that blew up your phone this morning and devours resources.
- Important is using a fraction of those resources to fix the process that caused the problem in the first place.
- Urgent is jumping into every decision because it’s faster and more familiar.
- Important is building people and systems that don’t need ... or want ... you playing helicopter boss. (Unless you have a pilot’s license, you don't get a pass.)
Urgent makes leaders feel busy and inflates their self-worth. Important actually moves the business forward through others. If you look back at 2025 and realize your calendar was packed, yet the business still depended on you for everything—that wasn’t leadership. That was poor execution combined with ego, lack of trust and a desire to be the Greatest American Hero—without the cape.
Deciding What You're 'Done' Doing
A real reset doesn’t start with new goals or fresh initiatives. It starts by deciding what you’re done doing:
- Done solving problems your team should own.
- Done tolerating sloppy execution because “we’re busy.”
- Done mistaking responsiveness for leadership.
- Done rewarding urgency over discipline.
Every "yes" has a cost. Every time a leader jumps in to handle something that shouldn’t require them, it reinforces dependence. Over time, the important work gets crowded out by constant, exhausting, non-productive motion, and the business becomes addicted to firefighting.
If you’re struggling, ask yourself three questions:
- What problem did I solve today that a manager should have handled?
- What "fire" did I put out that was caused by a broken process?
- What am I tolerating today that I will regret in June?
Setting the New Baseline
All organizations operate with a baseline. The question is whether it’s intentional or accidental. Your baseline shows up in what you allow to repeat: missed deadlines, excuses instead of performance, and/or problems that keep resurfacing because they are passed around like a hot potato.
I had a former boss who was absolutely insane about deadlines. Insane. And while I didn’t appreciate the pressure then, I recognize the wisdom now: If you allow something to keep happening, no matter how small … you approved it.
Not with an email or a call, but through a lack of action. Because if it’s not important to you—like deadlines—it’s not important to your team.
Resetting the baseline doesn’t require a big announcement. It requires consistent, disciplined action. It requires you deciding how you want your team to communicate, how your customers are treated, and how accountability is viewed ... and then standing firm when it becomes uncomfortable.
The 2026 Focus
You don’t need New Year motivation. This isn’t a gym commercial. You need to give your people clarity, direction and straight talk—consistently, clearly and confidently. But only after you’ve decided what to stop tolerating. Your team needs to know where the guardrails are, know they can hit one without it being fatal, and then they need you to get out of their way.
Remember: If everything matters, then nothing matters. The leaders who make progress in 2026 will refocus on the few things that actually move the needle:
- Putting the right people in the right seats.
- Establishing clear ownership and accountability.
- Executing with disciplined speed to drive cash flow.
- And last, but not least, enhancing a culture where problems are solved, not endlessly escalated.
January isn’t a magic month, and a new calendar does not alleviate the issue of tolerating low performance. But it is a checkpoint. It's an opportunity to decide whether you will lead this year differently, or if you’re going to do what you’ve always done.
Refocus on the important, not the urgent.
Reset the baseline you’re willing to defend.
Because whatever you tolerate this year, you’ll live with all year.
It's up to you.
-Abhi Singh
