Boost leadership development with the fresh start effect

New year, same leadership challenges?

Early January is peak season for fresh notebooks, bold intentions, and LinkedIn posts about a new year, new me. It’s also when leadership development plans are dusted off, programs kick off, and possibility hangs in the air.

This moment matters more than we tend to realise.

Behavioural science has shown that timing influences whether people are ready to try changing their behaviour. One of the most robust findings in this field is the fresh start effect, identified by researchers Hengchen Dai, Katy Milkman, and Jason Riis.

Used well, it can significantly improve the odds that leadership development efforts translate into real behaviour change. Used poorly, it can disrupt progress that’s already working.

What is the fresh start effect (and why should HR, OD, and L&D care)?

The fresh start effect describes a predictable increase in motivation to initiate change and pursue aspirational goals following moments that feel like a new beginning, such as the start of a new year, a birthday, a promotion, or the formation of a new team.

What’s going on psychologically?

Rather than experiencing time as one long, continuous stream, our autobiographical memories organise our lives into chapters. We tell stories about “when I was studying”, “my consulting years”, “before I became a parent”, or “since I stepped into this role”. Psychologists call these temporal landmarks, and they create a perceived break between chapters. They reflect a point in time that separates our old selves from the people we hope to become.

At these moments:

• Past failures feel further away

• Optimism and self-efficacy lift

• People are more willing to try again.

The appeal of fresh starts when changing behaviour lies in what they symbolise – either a real clean slate or the impression of one.

For leadership development, this matters because one of the biggest barriers to behaviour change isn’t capability, it’s confidence: “I’ve tried before, and it didn’t work.”

Fresh starts lower the barrier. A blank page makes it easier to believe that progress will be smoother and more lasting this time.

Why January works (briefly)

January is one of the most obvious fresh starts. It’s culturally reinforced, socially shared, and symbolically clean.

After December’s cognitive overload from end-of-year delivery pressure, social commitments, and accumulated fatigue, the idea of a fresh start is relieving. It gives leaders a moment to pause and step back from their busy lives. As they zoom out, they are more open to reconsidering their leadership identity, habits, ways of working, and priorities.

This is why January is when:

• Leaders are more receptive to feedback

• Goal setting feels easier

• Development initiatives gain early traction.

But there’s a catch.

Fresh starts open the door to change and help people begin. They don’t necessarily help them persist. This is why so many well-intentioned initiatives launched early in the year quietly fade as the months march on.

The opportunity for leadership development isn’t to ride the motivation spike. It’s to design for and around it. Lasting momentum depends on what we build after the rush of enthusiasm wears off.

Using the fresh start effect more strategically in leadership development

Below are practical ways HR, OD, and L&D leaders can leverage knowledge of the fresh start effect to improve behaviour change outcomes:

1. Time invitations for change, not just programs

Many leadership initiatives struggle before they even begin because the timing works against them. Leaders are already overloaded, entrenched in day-to-day routines, and juggling competing priorities.

Contrast that with what happens when an invitation to change coincides with a fresh start.

Think about a leader taking up a role at a new organisation. In those early weeks, they are already scanning for cues about how things are done around here. They are more open to feedback, more reflective about their impact, and more willing to experiment.

Practical applications:

• Launch leadership expectations at role entry, not six months in

• Frame early habits as part of who this role requires you to be

• Use the first 90 days to establish a small number of visible, high-leverage behaviours.

The same logic applies to:

• Start of year or quarter

• Launch of a new business strategy

• Return from parental leave

• Office moves

• Restructures

• Work anniversary

• Even Mondays!

How many times have you heard people say, “Tomorrow is another day”? There is always time for renewal. The opportunity lies in aligning leadership development with the moments when change is already easier, and the psychological cost of trying is lower. And the bigger the landmark, the more likely it is to help leaders step back, regroup, and make a clean break from the past.

2. Treat leadership transitions as identity shifts, not just skill upgrades

Leadership transitions are among the most transformative new beginnings, but are often underutilised by organisations.

Moving from being an individual contributor to leading others, or from leading a team of individual contributors to leading other leaders, isn’t just about doing more. It’s about doing different things.

Yet many organisations respond by adding capability content rather than resetting expectations about what needs to be picked up and what needs to be put down.

More effective approaches include:

• Explicitly naming what must now change (e.g. from solving to enabling, from doing to deciding)

• Surfacing common traps at each transition

• Normalising discomfort and early missteps.

When leaders understand that the role itself requires a behavioural shift, they are more likely to let go of habits that previously served them well but no longer do.

3. Use resets deliberately (and carefully)

Resets are everywhere at work. New strategy. New scorecards. New reporting cycles.

These resets – when the metrics used to track performance are set back to zero - can work similarly to fresh starts.

For example, organisations commonly introduce new leadership frameworks to address concerns about the strength or consistency of leadership. The intent is usually sound: clarify expectations, lift standards, and create alignment. New leadership frameworks typically come with new language, new behaviours, and new metrics.

For leaders who have been struggling, this can be energising. The reset distances them from past performance narratives and offers a chance to re-engage.

But the same reset can be destabilising for leaders who are already performing well. Research shows that wiping the slate clean can disrupt effective routines and undermine momentum.

Design implications:

• Don’t assume a new leadership framework benefits every leader equally

• Be clear about what genuinely needs to change versus what should be protected

• Allow strong performers to translate, not restart, what already works.

To summarise, resets can be a powerful, but also blunt instrument for change.

4. Pair fresh starts with behaviour scaffolding

Motivation spikes are temporary. Behaviour change lasts when effort is reduced. After a fresh start, the work is not to inspire leaders more; it’s to make the right behaviour easier to repeat.

 Effective scaffolding includes:

• Narrowing focus to one or two observable behaviours

• Embedding cues into existing workflows (meetings, 1:1s, decision forums)

• Using peer accountability rather than private intention

• Normalising multiple attempts rather than expecting immediate change.

Many leadership programs fail here. Not because the intent is wrong, but because the design assumes motivation will do the heavy lifting.

5. Create multiple fresh starts (not just January)

If change only has one annual entry point, some leaders will miss it.

Fresh starts can be deliberately created throughout the year:

• Quarterly development themes

• Post‑project reflections that explicitly close one chapter and open another

• Role‑entry and role‑exit conversations

• Manager‑led resets after team changes.

These fresh starts don’t need to be major. They just need to feel meaningful.

Bringing it together

The fresh start effect doesn’t guarantee change. But it does create windows where change is more likely to be attempted.

If you’re responsible for leadership development within your organisation, the opportunity is to:

• Notice these windows

• Design deliberately around them

• Support leaders beyond the moment motivation peaks.

January is one such window. Leadership transitions, team changes, and the launch of a new organisational strategy are others.

When leadership development is timed and designed with these dynamics in mind, it helps optimise the conditions under which change is more likely to stick. This, in turn, helps leaders translate new resolutions into new (and lasting) ways of leading.

Keen to introduce more behaviour change principles into your organisation’s approach to leadership development? Let’s explore ways we can do this together - get in touch here.

References

Dai, H. (2018). A double-edged sword: How and why resetting performance metrics affects motivation. Organisational Behaviour and Human Design Processes, 148, 12-29.

Dai, H., Milkman, K. L., & Riis, J. (2015). Put your imperfections behind you: Temporal landmarks spur goal initiation when they signal new beginnings. Psychological Science, 26(12), 1927-1936.

Dai, H., Milkman, K. L., & Riis, J. (2014). The fresh start effect: Temporal landmarks motivate aspirational behaviour. Management Science, 60(10), 2563–2582.

Conway, M. A., & Pleydell-Pearce, C. W. (2000). The construction of autobiographical memories in the self-memory system. Psychological Review, 107(2), 261–288.

Milkman, K. L. (2022). How to change: The science of getting from where you are to where you want to be. London: Penguin.