Latest / The Executive Reset / When Perfectionism Becomes a Leadership Trap: Breaking the Cycle of Over-Functioning

Transcript

When Perfectionism Becomes a Leadership Trap: Breaking the Cycle of Over-Functioning · The Executive Reset

• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Today's episode is for those of you who find yourself overpreparing, rarely delegating, and holding yourself to a standard that no one else is held to.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to talk about perfectionism today.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: For many women in executive roles, perfectionism isn't a personality quirk.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's a really rational response to an environment where mistakes cost us more and credit is really hard to come by.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: If your margin for error is small, being flawless starts to feel like a survival strategy.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: And overfunctioning is what that strategy looks like in practice.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: We keep doing more, we prepare more, and we carry more than our rules actually require.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: I often see this in my therapy office when women are rewriting a deck for the fourth time.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: They're rehearsing answers to questions nobody's going to ask, and they're walking into meetings with 10 times the material that they need.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: I hear a lot of, it's faster to just do it myself than to delegate, which actually makes you the bottleneck in every project and causes an enormous amount of stress.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a person who holds your own work to a level that you would never demand of your team, and a minor error feels like proof of inadequacy rather than a normal mistake, I am talking to you.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is not a call out.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: I teach women how to move past perfectionism all the time, and I still struggle with it regularly.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Just the other day, I entered a therapist's credentials incorrectly into a directory listing, and I felt absolutely mortified.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: It often feels to me like a small mistake is going to cost me all the success I've worked so hard to get to.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's totally irrational, and I'm aware of that, but the feelings still surge despite tons of practice.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: I have, however, learned how to engage those feelings differently when they come instead of getting totally absorbed in them.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what I know about perfectionism from a mental health standpoint.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Perfectionism often runs on fear, not ambition.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Fear of being found out, of confirming a stereotype, of losing credibility that you've worked really hard to earn.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: It can come from a number of different places.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: But it is often at the root of anxiety.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: So the more you strive for perfectionism, the more anxious you feel.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's a double-edged sword, and the cycle just keeps spinning.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: The payoff is really short-lived.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Success brings temporary relief rather than satisfaction.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: And the cycle begins again.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, your overfunctioning is totally draining you.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: It leaves you little time for recovery, and it can even feed resentment.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever looked around and asked yourself, why am I the only one doing this?
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't anyone else see this?
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's the type of resentment I'm talking about.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: It quietly teaches the teams around you to rely on you instead of growing their own capabilities.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: And the irony is that the behavior meant to prove you're capable, the perfectionism, can cap your effectiveness as a leader because executive work is about leverage, not output.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: But we've been taught to depend on our output for success.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: What a terrible bind.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: So, all that said, what actually helps with perfectionism?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I want us to take away from today.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: First, you want to separate high stakes from low stakes.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: So not everything has to deserve 100% of your effort.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: Deciding in advance where excellent matters, like board communications, key hires, or where 80% is fine frees up your energy.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I want you to focus on.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: I often use a bar graph to illustrate this when I'm working with folks.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: If we think about having, say, five or six different bars on a graph, and we know that we only have 100% total capacity.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: How are you going to spread that out against across those five bars?
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because we know that you can't be at 100% in every category.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: And yet when I come across people who struggle with perfectionism, that is the expectation they have of themselves, that they're going to be even greater than 100% often, like 110% at work, 110% at home, 110% for themselves, 110% for their partner.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: That is just not realistic, and it will keep you in a chronic state of disappointment with yourself and a chronic state of exhaustion.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: We want to delegate the outcome, not just the task.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Give clear context and a standard and then let it be done differently.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: So this looks like really tolerating things like that is not how I would do it, but it's good enough.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to let that person take that.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to delegate that.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: This is a skill.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: It does not come naturally to us.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: So it is something to practice.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Delegate the outcome, not just the task.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Next, you want to run small experiments.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: So send something out at 85% and see what actually happens.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Most of the time, the feared consequence doesn't actually arrive.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Data points are almost always going to be more convincing than any external reassurance.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: So definitely go back to your data before you pull the room.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because we make decisions based on emotion.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes that doesn't align with the reality of the data we have.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: So always go back and look at your data.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Next, you want to ask whose standard it is.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Notice whether the bar comes from the actual needs of the role or from an internalized sense of having to be twice as good as everyone else.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Then you're going to get a single candid outside view.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not talking about pulling the room.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about finding a single source, like a trusted peer, coach, or a therapist who can help calibrate what's really expected versus what you're imposing on yourself.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, you want to redefine competence.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Strong leaders build capacity, and others make decisions with incomplete information and recover well from errors.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: They are not perfect.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: So let's quickly review those seven steps that we can take.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: First, you can separate the high stakes from the low stakes.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: You can delegate the outcome, not just the task.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: You can run small experiments, ask yourself who set the standard, get a single candid outside view that's trustworthy, and then redefine competence.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: All that said, perfectionism is often protection that has outlived its usefulness.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: So it's important to ask yourself: is this still serving me or is it driving the cycle of anxiety further?
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because the goal isn't to lower your standards across the board, but rather to stop applying a standard that no one else is held to and to trade constant self-vigilance for leverage and sustainability.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I hope that you can choose one of those levers this next week in your work life.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd love for you to let me know how it goes.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to hear from you and to hear about your particular situation.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Until next week, I'm wishing you more peace, more power, and more purpose.