I watched an executive delay a piece of work for three weeks because it was not quite ready. It was good in week one. The thinking was clear, the recommendation was sound, and the risks were understood. 

But she kept refining it. Another scenario. Another round of feedback. Another attempt to anticipate every possible objection. By the time it reached the room, the decision had largely been made without her.

We call this having high standards. Often it is. But there is a point at which the work is no longer improving the outcome, it is simply adding a new layer of armour. 

Perfectionism has a good reputation in leadership. It looks like diligence, judgement, and care. It gets rewarded early in our careers because the person who spots every error and arrives exceptionally prepared is useful. For many women, it is also a rational response to being judged differently. When your mistakes are more visible and less easily forgotten, being exceptionally prepared becomes a way of reducing the risk.

The problem is that the strategy that earns credibility early can limit your leadership later. Senior leadership is not a controlled environment. The information is incomplete, the consequences are real, and there is rarely enough evidence to make everyone comfortable. Your job is not to eliminate uncertainty before moving. It is to make a sound decision despite it.

Perfectionism starts to hurt when the extra work no longer changes the outcome. It is the paper that gets revised after the argument is already clear. The opportunity you do not pursue because you meet eight of the ten criteria. The idea you keep to yourself until someone less prepared says it first. It is the leader who works late correcting a team member’s draft instead of letting them learn how to make it better.

Each decision looks responsible on its own. Together, they create delayed decisions, invisible thinking, dependent teams, and leaders who are exhausted by standards nobody explicitly asked them to meet.

The uncomfortable part is that perfectionism can look like competence while undermining your effectiveness. A leader who cannot release unfinished work becomes a bottleneck. A leader who needs every answer before making a decision teaches the organisation to wait. A leader who rewrites everything to their own standard may produce excellent documents, but they do not build an excellent team.

We like to say, “I just want it to be right.” Right for what? Not every email is a board paper. Not every meeting is a final examination. Not every mistake carries the same consequence. Leadership is knowing where precision matters and where further refinement is adding nothing.

That is not lowering the bar. It is deciding which work truly requires it. The norm worth rewriting is the idea that credibility comes from being the person who never gets it wrong. Credibility comes from sound judgement, clear thinking, and what you do when the decision does not produce the result you expected.

This requires organisations to change too. You cannot ask people to experiment and punish imperfect first attempts. You cannot celebrate innovation while making every mistake a reputational event. You cannot tell women to be bolder while rewarding them only when they arrive overprepared and beyond reproach.

The next time you find yourself checking, refining, or holding on, ask whether the work is materially better than it was yesterday. Ask what the real consequence would be of sharing it now. Ask whether you need to do this yourself or whether somebody else needs the opportunity to do it differently.

Perfectionism starts to hurt when the standard is costing more than it contributes. Care about the quality. Know where precision matters. Then back yourself and send the paper.