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 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. Most quietly admit to perfectionist tendencies. It’s not about lowering the bar. It’s about freeing their teams from paralysis. A perfectly reasonable leadership lever when you’ve got big goals and limited resources.

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