Progress Over Perfection. Is it helping or hurting your team?

Last night I ran a coaching session with a group of cross-functional leaders.

We were talking about the relationship between priority and capacity, and the temptation to blame inadequate capacity, when the real problem often stems from unclear or undisciplined prioritisation.

The conversation turned to perfectionism and how it constrains capacity.

"We keep telling people to focus on progress over perfection, but then we all get judged when the work isn’t right”.

The group went quiet. They’d all said some version of it to their people. Test and learn. Done is better than perfect. Ship it.

These aren't careless leaders looking to lower the bar. Most quietly admit to perfectionist tendencies. They’re trying to free their teams from overload or paralysis. It’s a perfectly reasonable leadership lever when you’ve got big goals and limited resources.

Perfectionism, gone unchecked, is expensive. It slows execution and increases anxiety. It turns leaders into bottlenecks. When accuracy genuinely matters, the instinct to get things right becomes the team’s DNA. For senior leaders, it’s more complicated as pace, learning and commerciality form part of their decision criteria.

So they change the expectation. They tell their teams not to overthink. Not to over-polish. To get it out. This is well-intentioned, but the impact is often ambiguous.

When a senior leader says, "This doesn't need to be perfect," what does that actually mean?
Perfect relative to what? And good relative to whom?

In the absence of clarity, people interpret in their own way.

Some hear: be thoughtful, but move (aka we're optimising for speed and learning).
Others hear: every minute you wait is lost potential revenue (aka we’re optimising for short-term commercial outcomes).

The most conscientious people silently carry the quality burden because they're not entirely sure where the real bar is.

The issue isn't motivation. No one sets out to do a poor job. The issue is calibration.

When the only reference point is "not perfect," the true standard becomes fuzzy.

When this happens, standards don't disappear; they fragment. We start to see uneven levels of rigour. Inconsistent outputs. Subtle frustration from those who feel others are coasting. Leaders are surprised by changes in the outputs from trusted team members, not because capability is lacking, but because the target was never clearly defined.

This ambiguity creates rework, hidden friction and an erosion of trust that emerges over time in both relationships and performance measures.

That said, "mistakes are OK here" is an important message. If people can't safely speak up, test ideas or admit errors, learning is lost.

But psychological safety isn’t the same as looseness. Psychological safety means you won't be punished for engaging honestly in the work. It doesn't mean the standard is negotiable.

When those ideas blur, the culture becomes inconsistent.

Rather than asking whether we should favour perfection or progress, we’re better off asking:

What are we optimising for in this context?

Speed? Learning? Brand trust? Clinical safety? Investor confidence?

Different contexts legitimately require different tolerances.

In early discovery work, rough thinking is appropriate. Half-formed ideas are welcome. Speed and exploration beat polish.

When delivering visible outcomes and reputation or safety is involved, precision matters. Details signal competence. In that instance, slowing down to ensure precision is not bureaucracy; it's wisdom.

The problem isn't imperfection. It's misapplied tolerance.

In the coaching session, it became clear that the leaders had been using (and hearing) the same language across very different types of work. "Progress over perfection" had become a catch-all phrase. Put simply, good enough for a brainstorming session is not good enough for a Board pack. Good enough for a prototype is not good enough for patient-facing communication.

As organisations scale, implicit standards create hidden blockers. What once felt obvious when everyone was tightly aligned becomes far less obvious across functions, sites or geographies. Ambiguity at junior levels creates discomfort. Ambiguity at senior levels is expensive due to rework, slowed decisions, and the subtle erosion of trust.

Many leaders will instinctively want to react by swinging back to rigidity. Rather than doing that, I encourage you to be more explicit.  

Moving From Slogan to Signal

If you suspect your language about “progress over perfection” has created more ambiguity than alignment, consider a deliberate shift.

Here are some practical ways to clarify the signal without swinging back to rigidity.

1. Interrogate your shorthand.
Notice when you say “good enough” or “this doesn’t need to be perfect.” Pause and ask yourself: what am I actually protecting here? Is it speed, learning, or commerciality?

2. Define consequence before you define pace.
Before pushing for speed, ask: What happens if this is wrong? Who feels it?

That conversation can save weeks of rework. When the consequence is low, loosen tolerance. When the consequence is high, tighten it. Make that gradient visible and consistent for your team.

3. Separate discovery from delivery (out loud).
People often move fluidly between thinking and doing. That’s a strength. It can also create confusion.

At the start of a discussion, name the mode.
“This is exploratory.”
“This needs to be decision-ready.”

You don’t need a framework. You need a label. It gives permission to calibrate.

4. Make standards visible in real time.
When reviewing work, articulate what you’re responding to.

“I’m pushing on this because it will be externally visible.”
“I’m relaxed about this because it’s an internal test.”

Over time, that commentary teaches the team how you weigh quality against speed. That modelling is often more powerful than policy.

5. Notice who is quietly compensating.
Ambiguity rarely spreads evenly. A handful of conscientious people raise the bar before work leaves the room. Others assume it’s fine.

If you consistently see the same names tightening documents, refining decks, correcting details, that’s a signal of unspoken standards. Try bringing those standards openly into your team conversations.

6. Revisit standards as you scale.
What felt obvious when you were 20 people, may not be obvious at 100. Growth introduces new levels of interpretation.

A short quarterly leadership conversation about “what good looks like now?” is often enough to prevent drift.

Leadership excellence isn’t about perfection. It’s about making the invisible visible. Giving teams the clarity and confidence to deliver at the right standard for the right moment. When you set the signal, not just the slogan, it builds the trust needed for your team to thrive.