Perfectionism Isn't High Standards. It's Fear.
Think about the last time you had a high-stakes meeting with someone who intimidates you a little. Maybe it was a board member, a member of the executive team, or a major donor.
You prepared so much. You rewrote the agenda four times, ran it by three colleagues, and rehearsed what you were going to say. The meeting went okay, but not exactly as planned, and then you spent the rest of the night replaying every moment, cataloguing everywhere you could have done better.
Part of you is embarrassed that you're letting this person have so much power over you, but another part believes that the only solution is to become so prepared, so polished, so unimpeachable that there is simply no opening to criticize you.
That's not high standards, that's fear dressed up as preparation.
Perfectionism and excellence look similar from the outside but they come from different places. Excellence means bringing your best thinking and effort to your work, then releasing attachment to controlling every outcome. Perfectionism is the belief that if you prepare enough, check with enough people, and think through every angle, you can guarantee that nothing will go wrong and no one will judge you.
That belief is a trap. And for values-driven leaders, it's an especially sticky one.
Your job is not just a job, it's your values in action. Which means failing at work doesn't feel like a professional setback, it feels like a moral one. That's why the stakes feel so impossibly high. That's why you reread emails three times before hitting send and replay conversations for days afterward. That's why the confidence you project in public doesn't always match how you feel at 3am when you’re spiraling.
Research on women in leadership and people with marginalized identities consistently shows that the pressure to perform flawlessly is not imaginary. Mistakes genuinely are judged more harshly for some of us than others. Your perfectionism didn't come from nowhere. It was a rational adaptation to real conditions that protected you and helped you achieve. The problem is that it's no longer serving you.
The reframe I work on with my clients is that it is not possible to eliminate all risk so that is not something you can take responsibility for. All you can do is make the best decision you can with the information you have, and trust yourself to handle whatever comes next.
Letting go of controlling every outcome doesn't mean you stop caring about doing good work. It means you stop destroying yourself in pursuit of an impossible standard.
References
Okun, Tema. “One Right Way along with Perfectionism | Paternalism Objectivity.” WHITE SUPREMACY CULTURE, https://www.whitesupremacyculture.info/one-right-way.html. Accessed 3 Apr. 2025.
Parajuli, Abhishek. “The punishment gap: how workplace mistakes hurt women and minorities most.” The World Economic Forum, 18 June 2019, https://www.weforum.org/stories/2019/06/the-punishment-gap-how-workplace-mistakes-hurt-women-and-minorities-most/ . Accessed 18 June 2025.