Excellence vs. Perfectionism

Perfection looks good, but excellence gets results. This episode breaks down: 

• A recent failure, the mindset behind it, and how to lead with ownership 
• The hidden cost of cutting corners
• Why asking for help shows strength, not weakness
• What excellence actually looks like in action

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Excellence vs Perfectionism
• 1:01 Client Story: When Image Trumps Effort
• 3:30 What Excellence Truly Looks Like
• 5:27 Practical Traits of Excellence
• 9:20 Final Thoughts and Call to Action

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey there, I'm Jill Griffin, leadership strategist and executive coach and host of the Career Refresh podcast. Today I'm talking about excellence. Don't mistake it. For perfection. There's an expression we are excellent, we are not perfect. What I mean by excellence is within your own ability, within your own gifts, your talents, your strengths. What does excellent look like for you? It's not what it looks like for him or her or them. It's what it looks like for you. But when we push for perfectionism, it has to be perfect. It's image driven, and that often leads us into some issues. So I want to dig into it today. All right, let's go. There is a real difference between striving for excellence and chasing perfectionism. One builds trust, the other builds up your ego.

Speaker 1: 1:01

I saw this play out recently in a situation that left a client both stunned and exposed. And, just to be clear, they have given me permission to talk about this situation. It's one of the reasons why they hired me. They were eager for a new opportunity. There was partnership potential here, so there was new eyes on their work and they wanted visibility with senior leadership. But their desire for the quick win overrode their discipline. They assumed it would be easy. They've done this before they cut corners. They did the bare minimum. They had other things going on. They delivered data without any insight here, it's all right here and they didn't bother to explain what any of the data or any of the information meant, why it mattered, why we should care, what action should come next. And there was a real tone and sentiment that this was lazy. And this lazy output was disguised as done. I did it, I got it done. They favored some pieces of business and accounts they were working on and ignored others. They refused help when it was clear that they were so in over their head. And why did they refuse help? Well, because they were afraid that asking for help would make them look weak and then they'd lose the opportunity or they'd have to share it or co-share it or partner in some way. But they already lost it anyway. Within a week, leadership had pulled the opportunity back from them. And the worst part which is why they reached out to me when they started to realize it is that they refused to take accountability. They claimed that their opportunity wasn't perfect, it was flawed, there were issues with it, or? Well, the leadership knew this. They knew that this was the way it was going to be. They then blamed the market and that leadership didn't get it. But what leadership got was that this person was now a reputational risk to this project and, potentially, to the company.

Speaker 1: 3:04

This wasn't about perfectionism. Perfectionism is image-driven, right. It's about controlling perceptions, not outcomes, hiding weaknesses instead of building solution. It's choosing to look smart instead of being smart. It's all image-driven. They were playing in trying to make it look perfect and therefore there was a bit of laziness in there because they were worried about the image versus the actual project.

Speaker 1: 3:30

Excellence is something else entirely. It is deliberate, I will tell you. It is a personal brand value of mine. It is grounded. It knows the difference between where to hustle and when you can glide. It is built on clarity where to hustle and when you can glide. It is built on clarity, consistency and delivery.

Speaker 1: 3:51

I've seen what excellence looks like. It's someone who steps into an opportunity with intention. They map out the effort, they ask questions, they are curious, they admit where there needs to be backup and they deliver work that represents the full strength of the power of the team. So whether that's they're the lead and they're tapping into the organizational structure, or whether they're partnering with other people, it is not just about their personal highlight reel.

Speaker 1: 4:19

You know, a CEO that I worked with told me once about a project that they fought so hard to lead solo and she said that she wanted the spotlight, the credit, the win, and it collapsed under her weight. And then she said that what she learned on that was that if you're going to go out on your own and not involve your teammates or the resources, then you're on your own. Meaning on your own. On your own, and that stayed with me Meaning. If you're going to trudge forward and be like carrying the flag, and I'm going to do it and I'm not going to bring anybody in because I need to look great and I need to be perfect and I need to be the one who gets acknowledged and the spotlight and all the praise, then great, go for it. I hope you don't have any mistakes. I hope you don't need help, because if you're going to cut other people out of it, it's not the way we work today. It's not the way we should be working today. We should be in a collaborative approach to things. There's not always someone to collaborate with directly, but there's ways of bringing in other input and outside sources in order to make something solid. So what does excellence look like in practice? There are a couple of key things that I see. It's only effort, not about the image. Now, look, there's always a little bit of image.

Speaker 1: 5:37

But you know, you have worked with this person and it may even be yourself. You have been with that person where everything kind of feels like vaporware. Everything feels a little bit like smoke and mirrors and when you dig under the surface and you ask the question it gets a little scary. I actually had a doctor like that once. I know scary Because of my head injury. I've done an excessive amount of studying around the brain and understanding around functional medicine and functional nutrition, which is really the study of anatomy, physiology and food and how your environment plays an impact on your actual physiology, and when you have a brain injury it's really important. So back to it. I actually had a doctor once where every time I asked her a question she could only touch the surface and I was like that's not true, that's not right. So clearly I stopped seeing her. But it took a couple of times for me to be in a session with her where I was like, oh yeah, this isn't working.

Speaker 1: 6:31

So this is where you're not worried about impressing. You're worrying about delivering. Sure, you want to make sure that things are buttoned up and it looks good. But I don't mean looking good like snazzy dress looking good. I mean looking good in that your documentation is there, your resources is there, you have your footnotes, you have your data, you have your sources. That's what I'm talking about.

Speaker 1: 6:55

Excellence means committing to the actual work, not just the optics that you know and you've gone deep and you know the answers to things, or you've brought in teammates who are excellent in those areas and you're able to say you know what Christine over here would be the best person to answer that for you and that you're actually pulling in those other people. You want to show progress, you want to share your thinking and you don't hide behind the polished spreadsheet and just say that it's done. Having the numbers is one thing. Having the insight is where the excellence comes in. Next is use your resources. Nobody wins alone. I know you're going to hear the hero's journey and hero stories. Guess what? There's always people along the way who have contributed. You might be the one or the hero might be the one who's done the most work and deserves the accommodation and the credit and all of that and the accolades Great. But there's still people along the way who helped.

Speaker 1: 7:53

So excellence means understanding your limits and looping in support early. It takes more strength to ask for help than to pretend you don't need it and pretending is going to catch up with you. And lastly, I'm going to tell you to stay steady. Excellence isn't frantic, it isn't graspy, it isn't needy. It's about consistency. It's about managing your mind, checking how you feel If you're having really crummy thoughts. It's about balancing back, figuring out what truth from truth is meaning. It might feel true from you. It isn't really true. It might not really be true. So let's come back to the facts, because when you're then operating and looking to create steadiness, you're doing it from a place of that clarity, that confidence. It's about managing your mind and when things are uncertain or hard and I've just dropped an episode on uncertainty really checking in. It's delivering, even when the spotlight is gone. It's the follow through, it's the tying up and making sure the wrap up report, it's cleaning up after the event.

Speaker 1: 8:57

Again, I'm not saying you are doing it alone. I'm saying you're doing it with others and making sure it gets done, especially when you're in the spotlight. You could be the senior, most leader, but you're making sure that you're putting effort and human and financial resources against the back end, not just the front end, of what you're doing. Perfectionism is fragile. It is going to crumble under pressure. Excellence is resilience. It holds up even when no one is watching, and the choice between those two is going to define how your results show up and how your reputation flourishes. All right, I, as always, want to hear from you. Send me an email at hello at jillgriffincoachingcom, if you have questions, if you have experience with excellence versus perfectionism. I want to hear it all. Until next time, friends, embrace possibility, be excellent, be inspired and kind.