Blurters, you may disagree, but when people tell you that you are a perfectionist it may not be a compliment.
Growing up the expectations and demands placed on me were high, there was a certain standard that I had to live up to. Raised by a single mother who encouraged you that as a woman you can become anything and do anything if you work hard. However by the same subset, there was a notion of how women should behave, act, dress and speak.
In efforts to live up to this standard, I ensured that I spoke eloquently, behaved appropriately and dressed accordingly (ok well, I tried to). Unfortunately people tend to categorise you by these aspects. Someone that is always well put together and behaves in accordance to your ideologies of them can place huge stress on the person resulting in one of two things, rebellion or pretence.
When I entered into the working world, this stigma continued, people would often joke that if they gave me a project, I would put a plan together in minutes, bind it on colourful paper and have it on their desks before close of business.
So I took on the role of the " office perfectionist" as I navigated through jobs and climbed the corporate ladder into senior leadership roles I came to the understanding that your employees do not need a perfectionist, they need a realist.
I learned the hard way that creating an environment where people can learn and fail fast enables a safe growth environment as opposed to working for a leader whom they cannot relate to or learn from because of the level of demands they need to live up to.
With this new world view, I intend on leaving the perfectionist in me behind, this platform certainly helped me to ease into this new role of the realist leader, fierce and proud of her mistakes because she can learn from them.