The journey to the upper echelons of leadership will see most leaders facing a variety of challenges on a day-to-day and longer-term basis. However, an interesting challenge that CEOs face but perhaps don't understand, is knowing the difference between excellence and perfection, and importantly where each one fits into the overall scheme of things.
Excellence is arriving with your credibility intact at an outcome that is accurate, reliable and valid, despite any mistakes you have made along the way.
Excellence is highly correlated to achievement; it is the most constructive and productive way to lead your life.
A few tips to focus on excellence
- Live your life by your values and beliefs
- Be willing to improve and develop yourself and learn from your mistakes
- Be open to constructive criticism
- Know that your achievements are guided by your actions and have not just happened with blind luck
- Have an ability and desire to get on with the job and do it well
- Inspire and motivate others and help to build their confidence
- Be a good delegator and a natural leader
- Take calculated risks
- Focus on delivering quality work
The benefits of becoming more focused on excellence are that:
- You open the door for personal and professional opportunities
- You are more respected and trusted by others around you
- You will be more effective in every area of your life
- You are more realistic about your goals and how you will achieve them
- You are happier and less stressed
- You acknowledge your achievements and enjoy them
Avoiding perfectionism
Perfectionists unfortunately tend to get caught up in the detail of every little task they undertake and as a consequence often get stuck in trying to ensure an outcome that, in their mind, is perfect. These individuals see themselves as highly effective but in fact they are actually self-sabotaging.
The characteristics of a perfectionist is:
- Attaching self-worth to the accomplishment of tasks
- Repetitive, sometimes ritualistic behaviour
- Low self-esteem
- A tendency to place excessive demands on themselves and others
- A preoccupation with detail that distorts perspective and judgement
- An excessive concern with avoiding mistakes
- An inability to deal with, or express, emotion
- Irritation and impatience when things don't meet their rigid standards
Does this sound familiar?
Are you a perfectionist? If so, these characteristics will in all probability hold you back from achieving far-reaching success. Choosing to avoid perfectionism does not mean that you are choosing to do a mediocre job; it simply means you have decided not to get bogged down in unnecessary detail. The small things.
If you are a leader that has to micro-manage every little situation, let me ask you this:
"What is it you are avoiding?" - because you obviously are not getting on with achieving your desired outcomes. There is a cost attached to continuing down the perfectionist path - you will miss opportunities both personally and professionally. Additionally, you will find it difficult to see the big picture of what you are trying to achieve.
A few tips for letting go of perfection
- Start to "let go" a little, and make sure you have a balanced approach to your work and personal life. Don't get hung up on leaving a cup in the sink overnight; prioritise your work and see what can be left to do the next day.
- Start having a more rounded life that involves taking a little risk and not having everything planned out down to the tiniest detail. Think of some things you can do to go outside your comfort zone; don't fill up your weekend with too many things, leaving no room to be impulsive or to put your feet up for half a day. Leave a gap for other opportunities and unexpected surprises to come into your life.
- Imagine the worst-case scenario that would happen if you produced less than 100% perfect work. Would you be fired for preparing a presentation that was not a graphically designed masterpiece? Would your professional reputation be permanently damaged over a typo? Would your client go elsewhere if you sourced two quotes instead of three?
In each case, the answer is the same - very unlikely! You will find that you achieve good results with less stress and in less time if you just ease up a little on your standards. You want excellence, not perfection. Perfection is next to impossible and is a very subjective matter - what is perfect to one person is over-the-top and unnecessary to another.
- Focus on what is important, on who you want to be ... then be that person. Take some time to work out where you want go to from this point. Schedule some thinking time and start doing some work on yourself. What is your development plan to get to where you want to be in life?
- Take the advice of world-renowned thought specialist, Dr Edward de Bono, and bypass traditional, perfectionist thinking in favour of creative thinking. In his seminal book, Parallel Thinking, Dr de Bono says, "Traditional thinking places the emphasis on judgement and the need to be right at every step. With creativity you do not need to be right at every step so long as the final idea has value". What a relief! We don't have to be perfect every step of the way - we just need to focus on producing a valuable end result.
In moving further away from the rigid confines of perfectionism, Dr de Bono explains:
"Creativity involves a willingness to challenge, a willingness to take risks, a willingness to be provocative, and a willingness to step outside the judgments that are a summary of past experience."
Creativity provides us with the means of letting go of our need to be perfect, so get those creative juices flowing and look forward to perfectly imperfect success!
Perfection certainly has its place in the corporate world - you most certainly want your chief financial officer or company lawyer to have an eye for detail and make sure they have all their ‘i's dotted and ‘t's crossed, as there is no room for mistakes in their role, but I maintain in terms of the C-level suite, they hold the ‘exception to the rule'.