From the website Catholic Culture:

Pope John Paul II has been criticized both before and after his death as being a poor ruler because he was a poor disciplinarian. To say that he was a poor disciplinarian implies at least one of three things. First, the Pope was unaware of the need for discipline, out of touch with reality. Second, the Pope tried to discipline but didn’t have the stomach for it and was therefore ineffective. Third, the Pope was attentive to disciplinary matters but simply wasn’t any good at it.

Any of the above would imply that the Pope’s ability to govern effectively was compromised by his poor disciplinary ability. I subscribe to another theory: that the option of discipline in the typical sense was examined, and generally discarded as being inappropriate for the circumstances of our day.