I spent the next few weeks talking to Kristin’s employees, her peers on the leadership team, and after several rescheduled meetings, her boss. I did find many of them reluctant to offer critical feedback, but not for the reason Kristin wondered about. Their hesitation came from genuine appreciation for and loyalty to Kristin. Employee after employee praised Kristin’s open and generous communication style and her willingness to listen and provide support. Even her boss wanted to emphasize Kristin’s strengths rather than areas she could improve, repeatedly telling me the division couldn’t have made it through the last year without her. Once I assured everyone that Kristin had specifically requested this feedback as a way of supporting her development as a leader, they were more forthcoming.

When I sat down with Kristin to share what I’d heard, she was bracing herself.

“So how bad is it?” she asked.

“Oh, wow, Kristin,” I said. “What’s with the doom and gloom?

You know what? I think I’ll have to keep you in suspense. Let’s start with what folks say they appreciate about you. Because guess what? They really do appreciate you.”

“Well, that’s nice to hear,” she said. “They’re all very kind.”

“They are, but I think it’s more than that,” I said. “One of them made a comment that was really striking, and to me it sums up people’s feelings toward

you: they said you gave this organization ‘the warm hug it needed after the torment it had been through.’ I don’t know that I’ve ever heard a comment like that.”

A look of embarrassment swept across Kristin’s face. “That’s great,” she said, “and thanks for passing that on, but what about the less touchy-feely stuff? Like my real leadership impact.”

“I’ll give you that part too. But I want you to realize that what that person said directly reflects your leadership impact.”

“OK,” Kristin said, “I hear you.”

I took Kristin through the two major themes that highlighted the strengths her team had identified in her, and what they most valued in her leadership. I handed her a feedback report with a distillation of their remarks, supported by some of the comments they made:

1. Collaborative and empathetic leadership approach

• “She is very committed and available. Her door is always open, literally and figuratively.”
• “She’s deeply human and relatable and cares about what you’re talking about.” 
• “The level she made herself available to staff during the crisis is above and beyond. . . . It was actually a brilliant decision to put herself out there as a model for trustworthy, ethical leadership.”
• “She listens very closely and shows tremendous empathy—she single-handedly shepherded our organization through a crisis. Everybody is in awe of how she was able to take a full-body blow with such grace and poise.”
• “You can tell she’s actively listening and absorbing every word you say. When she reports back or asks a follow-up question, it’s amazing to see all that she’s able to take in.”

2. Strong intelligence and strategic thinking ability

• “She’s unbelievably intelligent and has a huge capacity for information.”
• “She’s smart, grasps issues quickly, and can connect all the dots.”
• “She’s a quick study. She is fantastic at synthesizing views and distilling what she hears from others.”
• “She is smart, with a good sense of strategic ability to think through complicated issues.”
• “When Kristin leads a meeting or assigns new projects, you can tell she knows the agenda or the objectives backward and forward. Her preparation skills are unmatched and whatever she produces is flawless.”

This is the kind of feedback leaders live for. But not Kristin. She looked more and more uncomfortable, and I could tell it was a struggle for her to receive it. I asked her how she felt about the feedback.

“It’s all really great and I appreciate everyone’s kindness,” she said. “But I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. I’m eager to hear what they said I’m doing wrong and how I can improve.”

“We’ll get there. But the feedback you asked for includes your team’s estimation of what’s working well. I hope you won’t just dismiss it. What’s clear is that to others, it’s a big deal that you listened and brought a collaborative approach to leading the group. Does that resonate with you?”

“Well, when I took over the role, the place was a mess,” she said.

“Not just my division but the whole company.  Nothing like that had ever happened here before, and I’ve never seen people so upset. I just didn’t think going about business as usual was the right thing to do. So I spent my first thirty days having one-on- ones with each person in my group.”

“Every single one of them?”

“Yup. All ninety-three of them. And then I expanded to the rest of the company. I think I’ve met with at least half of the folks in headquarters individually, and I traveled out to the regions for town halls to hear our other offices’ concerns. Sometimes I was definitely the punching bag, but I can take it, and I think it’s important to hear from everyone to rebuild that trust.”

“I’m sure it has helped rebuild trust,” I said. “Let’s finish the feedback report and look at the suggestions people had for you. What was interesting with your feedback, Kristin, is that typically I get at least three or four opportunity areas for leaders. For you, I only got one. Can you guess what it is?” 

“No, just tell me—I don’t even want to try because I’ll probably get it wrong.”

“It’s not a test, so there’s no penalty if you get it wrong. But what kept coming up time and time again was everyone wants you to work on your decisiveness.”

Kristin’s jaw dropped. “What? My decisiveness?”

“Yes, and that was the case across the board—your team, your peers, and your boss, too. Now listen, this isn’t about the quality of your decisions; it’s more about how long it takes you to get to them. Or even if you make a decision at all. Here, let me show you what they said, and you can see if any of this rings true to you.” Just as before, we went through the list together:

• “Kristin needs to work on making decisions. She does a tremendous amount of research on her own, followed by a lot of canvassing to find out what others think, which creates delays. We’ve been late to deliver a few times, so people are starting to get frustrated and move ahead on their own. The irony is Kristin is so smart and everyone trusts her judgment, so she shouldn’t hesitate to make the call.”
• “I would love for her to take a tougher stance and just put a stake in the ground. Sometimes it feels like she’s kicking the can instead of driving to a conclusion.”
• “It’s so nice that she wants to hear from everybody, but there are certain times she needs to make the call herself. I also think she has a perfectionist streak that can get the best of her and makes her put off decisions.”
• “Her strong desire for consensus often supersedes her decision-making. It can really slow things down.”
• “She often gets bogged down by others’ input. She has to be able to seek input from the right people versus trying to hear from everybody before she’ll commit. She relies too much on others for assurance that she’s making the right decision.”
• “I’ve noticed she’s often in search of the perfect decision or answer. That’s admirable to a certain extent, but ‘perfect’ doesn’t exist, and her drive to get there just ends up causing delays.”
• “She’s very risk-averse because she doesn’t want to make any mistakes. Sometimes she’s slow to act because she’s working so hard to make sure everything is exactly right, or because she’s asking everyone if they think she’s making the right call.”

“Wow. That’s not good,” Kristin said. “I had no idea so many people think I’m so bad at making decisions.”

“I don’t think that’s what the feedback says,” I told her. “It says they’d like you to drive to decisions faster than you are. It’s not saying you’re making bad or wrong decisions. It’s about pace.”

“Same difference in my view!” Kristin said. “This is one of my primary responsibilities, and I’m failing at it. But how am I supposed to make the right decisions if I don’t take the time to listen to what everyone thinks? I mean they just said they like that I listen to them, but then they turn around and say, ‘Oh, don’t waste your time listening to us and just make a decision already.’ ”

“Is that your only takeaway, Kristin?”

“No, I’m sorry. I’m just surprised and frustrated. It hasn’t been easy spending all this time meeting with people, getting input and hearing their complaints, and then to be told I’m not doing it fast enough.”

“I understand. And I don’t want you to lose sight of the fact that all that listening you did was needed. Now they need you to take all the information they’ve given you and do something with it.”

“OK, I can see that,” she said. “I guess I’ve been so busy trying to gain consensus I haven’t really done the one thing they’re looking for me to do—make the decision.” She sighed. “It’s not like I don’t want to make decisions. I just think it’s important to get input and to weigh different perspectives.”

“To what end?”

“To make the right decision. That’s the end goal.”

“And how will you know if you’re making the right decision?”

“Well, that’s the thing. I’m not sure I know what the right decision is in many of these situations. And I sure don’t want to make the wrong one, so I keep deliberating and asking for input until I feel sure we’ve come up with the right answer that everyone is on board with, together. There’ve been enough bad calls made for this team. Hell, for this company! And I’m not letting that happen again—not on my watch. I can’t make a mistake.”

“Hmm. You can’t make a mistake, so you spend more time looking for the right answer and for confirmation that you have the right answer . . . and then end up never making the decision that could potentially cause the mistake to begin with?”

Kristin laughed. “Well, when we play it out like that, I suppose that’s what’s happening. This all boils down to the fact that I can’t make a mistake.”

“Is that actually a fact, though, Kristin? That you can’t make mistakes?”

“I guess it’s not a fact. Everyone makes mistakes, obviously. I just feel like I can’t.”

Because leadership and high achievement work hand in hand, the hidden blocker of “I can’t make a mistake” tends to be on heavy rotation among my clients. Sometimes it shows up as the strong aversion to and fear of making mistakes, as was the case with Kristin. This type of thinking is powered by the desire to avoid failure, so naturally it inspires avoidance behaviors— For example, Kristin’s reluctance to make decisions and her procrastination on moving things along. Other times, this limiting belief shows up as an active pursuit for impossibly high standards. Instead of avoidance-driven thinking like “I must not make an error” or “If I don’t try, I won’t risk getting it wrong,” the thinking behind those who put enormous effort into trying to achieve perfection is more along the lines of “Nothing less than perfection will do” or “If I don’t meet all my goals, it means I’ve failed—and I can’t let that happen.”

Perfectionism, which some of Kristin’s team had mentioned, can be very challenging to work with and overcome. Certainly, it exists on a continuum, and at the lower end of the spectrum—what we might call perfectionist tendencies—it doesn’t necessarily result in behaviors that compromise one’s leadership or well-being. To underscore the point, some experts distinguish between adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism. With adaptive perfectionism, a person sets very high goals and standards that are challenging but not unrealistic. If they fail to meet those standards, they’re disappointed, but they’re able to tolerate their mistakes or shortcomings, then regroup and try again.

Maladaptive perfectionists, on the other hand, set unrealistic goals, and they feel intense distress when they miss the mark. Even small errors can feel disastrous and can inspire harsh self-recrimination and shame. Maladaptive perfectionists may have such an intense fear of failure that they procrastinate on tasks or avoid trying at all, and when they do produce good results, they’re unable to derive satisfaction from them. Other researchers, including renowned perfectionism experts Paul Hewitt and Gordon Flett, argue against the notion that perfectionism can ever be considered adaptive or beneficial, as it is never without its problems. They caution that we should not conflate the desire to excel with the desire to be perfect. These are two very different things, and because it is impossible to reach perfection, anyone striving for it is engaged in an unachievable quest that sets them up for exhaustion, chronic stress, and greater vulnerability to psychological distress.

I appreciate this point, and to be clear, the drive to excel, avoid mistakes, and succeed is healthy and desirable—indeed, it is characteristic of good leadership. The problem comes when these healthy desires become a preoccupying force that inspires unproductive behaviors (procrastination, inaction, harsh self-criticism, overwork, indecision), or when a person sets unachievable metrics for success. 

Experts tell us that how perfectionism affects our behavior depends on the patterns of thinking behind it:

• Self-oriented perfectionists are internally motivated. They set impossibly high standards for themselves that they strive constantly to achieve. They can be extremely self-critical and focus excessively on their own shortcomings.
• Socially prescribed perfectionists are externally motivated. They believe they must achieve impossible ideals in order to be valued and accepted. They have a deep fear of disappointing others.
• Other-oriented perfectionists set impossibly high standards and expectations for others. They constantly evaluate others’ behavior and performance, and can be very critical when others miss the mark. 

Do you see the common theme with each type? Perfectionists strive with all their might to make the impossible happen. Even when they realize they’re in a losing game with ever-shifting goalposts, perfectionists cannot resist trying. “Maybe this time I’ll finally feel like I’ve succeeded.” “If I hit it out of the park, maybe this time they’ll see how valuable I am.” “Maybe this time they’ll deliver the performance I know they’re capable of.” Their core fear is of not measuring up to themselves, to others, or both.

The thin line between a healthy personal desire to excel and the type of limiting belief that makes success and satisfaction feel out of reach appears when leaders set impossible standards for themselves, and doing so negatively impacts their effectiveness or well-being. That’s what was happening with Kristin. Though she was undoubtedly successful and well-liked, and had many strengths, her need to avoid mistakes was compromising her effectiveness in her new role. And in the saddest of ironies, it was beginning to eat away at the trust her employees felt for her.

Until this point, Kristin had justified her belief that she can’t make mistakes as necessary given the turmoil they had just been through as a result of previous leaders’ decisions. What was still unclear was whether this hidden blocker of hers was isolated to this particular context and moment in time, or whether it also showed up in other ways. So I gave Kristin a simple assignment. “I want you to try something between now and our next meeting,” I said. “I’m going to send you a jar and some marbles. Starting next Monday, I want you to put a marble in the jar every time you notice the thought ‘I can’t make a mistake’ cross your mind. At the end of the day, text me a picture of the jar. Do that every day of the week.”

I knew this would be logistically possible given that Kristin was on a hybrid schedule, and she’d be working from home. 

As the week progressed, Kristin sent me pictures.

When we next met, I showed her a printout of the photos side by side. “OK, Kristin,” I said. “What’s going on here?”

We both laughed.

“As hokey as I thought this jar thing was going to be,” she said, “it was really enlightening.”

“In what way?”

“Well, first of all, check out the empty jar on Monday. I didn’t forget my homework, and it’s not that the thought of ‘I can’t make a mistake’ never crossed my mind, but every time I went to put a marble in the jar, I hesitated. I kept wondering if I’d understood the assignment correctly. I almost texted you to ask. Anyway, I kept going back and forth in my head, with my hand literally holding a marble over the jar, and then gave up. Is that ridiculous or what?”

“Not at all,” I said. “What did this tell you? How did it translate into real life?”

“It made me notice how, even with small, inconsequential things,

I overthink it because I don’t want to do it ‘wrong,’” she said, gesturing air quotes. “To the point where I don’t make a move. And then let’s not talk about what happened on Wednesday.” She rolled her eyes.

“Which was?”

“Well, notice how on Tuesday I finally put some marbles in the jar. But then, by Wednesday, there were fewer than the day before.”

“What’s that about?”

“I took some marbles out!” 

Now that one, I had not expected.

Kristin shook her head. “Once again, I started to worry I was doing the exercise wrong. Then I started second-guessing whether or not I’d really had the ‘I can’t make a mistake’ thought, and I took out a few marbles.”

“Interesting.”

“That’s not interesting, Muriel. It’s called flip-flopping, being wishy-washy. Over marbles! No wonder my team is frustrated with me. I hate to admit it, but I think I do this a lot. With every decision—big, small, medium, whatever.”

“But then by Thursday, you’re back.”

“Yeah, seeing the patterns visually made me realize what was happening. So as soon as I saw that, I just committed. And as you can see, ‘I can’t make a mistake’ is at the top of my playlist when it comes to my personal soundtrack.”

“Bravo for seeing it through, Kristin, and even more importantly, for drawing some very powerful insights from the exercise. What I hear you saying is that this belief you have that you can’t make a

Mistake occurs frequently, even on inconsequential things, and it gets in the way of you moving forward or causes you to doubt yourself when you do take action.”

“That’s right,” Kristin said. “And I can see how this has happened over the last several months in terms of me not committing on some key decisions I need to make for our group. But even more than that, I think this fear of making a mistake makes me spend way more energy than I need to on a lot of things, which slows me down. I’m kind of embarrassed by it, to be honest.”

“Why’s that?”

“I don’t like being wrong,” she said. “Who does? And in this exercise, I’m damned if I do, damned if I don’t. Whether I put marbles in or not, I look bad.”

“Look bad to whom?”

“To you?” Kristin replied. “And me too!”

“Can you say more?”

“I don’t want to look like I don’t know what I’m doing. I mean who does? So I go out of my way to make sure my work is foolproof.” 

“Is that what would happen if you made a mistake? It would mean you don’t know what you’re doing?”

“Well, in my mind, yeah.”

Kristin explained that she’d been raised with a “do it right or don’t do it at all” mentality. In a lot of ways, that had helped her enormously. Her performance reviews were consistently outstanding, she’d received merit increases every year, and she’d been promoted three times in

seven years. “None of that came about by accident,” she concluded.

“You ought to be proud of yourself,” I said. “I’m curious—did you ever receive any negative feedback?”

“A few things here and there on performance reviews,” Kristin said. “Everybody has areas for improvement.”

“And how did that affect you?”

Kristin laughed. “Not well! I mean, in feedback discussions I was always super professional, and I was genuinely grateful to know how I could get better. But yeah, for any metric where I didn’t get a five out of five, it was all I could think about.”

“How did it make you feel?”

“Disappointed. It’s like I came up short and I just wasn’t good enough.”

“So, is it the perfect score that you’re chasing? Or is it the feeling of being good enough that it gives you?”

Kristin stayed silent.

“There’s no right or wrong answer here,” I assured her.

“Yeah, I know. I’m just realizing how much all that I do is not for the work in and of itself. It’s to keep me from feeling lesser than. And if I can’t be assured that won’t be the case, then I just procrastinate or avoid the task entirely.”

“Lesser than what?”

“Lesser than what I think others expect of me. And what I expect of myself. Except that now I realize that in my desire to not disappoint others, I’ve avoided making decisions. Which means that in reality, I have disappointed them because I haven’t made the decisions, they need me to make.”

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Muriel M. Wilkins is the founder and CEO of Paravis Partners, the author of Leadership Unblocked and the coauthor of Own the Room (Harvard Business Review Press).

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