Do you need to get over your perfectionism to get the promotion you want?

"I want to get promoted but my boss says I need to first learn to delegate better. I find this really difficult as some of my reports have lower standards than I would like so I end up fixing their mistakes or doing the work myself. How can I get over my perfectionism so I can get a promotion?"

I hear this challenge frequently from my clients as they progress. Early on in their careers they were trained to have high standards and a great attention to detail and were rewarded for this, however as they become more senior they are expected to stop executing and start delegating.?

If you have a team of people with standards as high as yours who work in the way you would like then that’s relatively painless, however this situation is rare. So how do you let go?

Tuning in to when to use this perfectionism to your advantage versus when it’s just making a task longer than it needs to be is an important first step. Perfectionists tend to hold on tight, they want everything done a certain way and find it hard to know when a piece of work is ‘good enough’.? Start by noticing which tasks genuinely warrant perfection and which can be executed to a good, but not perfect, standard.?

Next make a list of all your regular tasks and identify which are the worst use of your time such as repetitive tasks that don’t require your experience or expertise. Of the ones that you could delegate which can you be less of a perfectionist about? Don’t delegate out highly important tasks where a single mistake will cause a major issue. By delegating out low risks tasks, where an error isn’t the end of the world, allows your team the space to make mistakes.

Make sure you take time to upskill your team. Don’t just delegate a task and assume the person will know how to do it. Show them how to do it to the top standard, then on the next pass work alongside them whilst they do it to make sure they’re able to do it well, once you can see they can do this task to a high standard leave them to get on with it. Even better ask them to teach someone else in your team the same skill. This ‘Show One, Do One, Teach one’ technique taken from William Halsted is frequently used in the medical profession as a way to teach others and check their learning.? Make sure they’ve nailed the ‘Do One’ phase before you ask them to start teaching others!

Learn how to deal with failure and mistakes.? Letting go of perfectionism and delegating does mean losing some control and it also means at some point someone in your team will make a mistake that you will have to deal with.? Learning how to handle these situations in a way that positions you as a leader is key. Don’t throw your team member under the bus but also don’t let them avoid the consequences of their actions, remember failure is a key learning moment for them.? Work on not swooping into fix the error but showing them how they can fix it,

Finally you have to make a conscious choice, there will be moments when you have to choose between the comfort of your perfectionism and the fulfilment you will get from progressing in your career. If you find letting go truly painful and find the stress of managing others too much there’s nothing wrong with saying you don’t want to manage a team and would rather focus on executing your own tasks to a high standard.

However, if you want to reach that next level then maybe consider working with a coach or psychologist to help you unpick this need for control and get comfortable with letting go.

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