Action Beats Perfection

Perfection promises safety, but it quietly drains momentum, frustrates teams, and lets faster competitors win. We pull back the curtain on the perfection trap and show how courageous action, not flawless planning, drives real results. 

From stress drivers that kick in under pressure to the subtle fears that keep smart leaders stuck, we map the patterns that stall execution and offer a practical path forward. Lois unpacks the critical difference between excellence and perfection. Excellence is doing your best with what you have when you have it; perfection waits for conditions that never arrive. 

You’ll hear a candid story of a leader who swapped endless refinement for 80% clarity, took the first step, and sparked a transformation that became a company case study. The message is simple and urgent: action creates learning that planning alone cannot.

We share four field-tested strategies to move now and improve as you go. Use the 80% rule to decide faster, time-box choices to end analysis loops, reframe mistakes as data to speed learning, and model imperfection to build psychological safety. 

These moves align teams, invite contribution, and create a culture where speed and quality grow together. If you’re leading change, scaling a team, or navigating ambiguity, this conversation equips you with the mindset and tools to choose progress over perfection and to keep momentum when it matters most.

Ready to take the next step? Pick one decision you’ve been delaying and make a move this week. Then tell us what you did and what you learned—subscribe, share the episode with a leader who needs it, and leave a review to help others find the show.

Leadership Horizons - Helping You Lead Beyond Boundaries

Chapters

• 0:08 Naming The Perfection Trap
• 0:56 Action Surpasses Perfection
• 1:50 When Perfection Stalls Teams
• 3:00 Excellence Versus Perfection
• 4:00 Three Ways Perfectionism Undermines Leadership
• 5:21 From Fear To Courage: A Case Study
• 6:47 Four Practical Strategies To Act

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:08

Hello and welcome back to Leadership Horizons. I'm Lois Burton and today we're tackling one of the most insidious barriers to leadership effectiveness that I see. The pursuit of perfection. With my Leading with Resilience group this last week, we've been looking at the stress drivers, and I don't know if people have come across the stress drivers. And it's a way of assessing what drives you when you get under stress. And the um and the the stress drivers are be perfect, be strong, please people, try harder, and hurry up. And one of the most common stress drivers amongst leaders is be perfect. So one of the best people who coached me over the years is a great woman called Bernadette Doyle. And I remember when I started working with her back in 2012, she always talked about getting into action and said, don't wait for it to be perfect, get it done. Because action surpasses perfection every time. This was great personal learning for me and something I've always tried to live by in my business. And I also see it in my work with leaders. So I know that the leaders who make the greatest impact aren't the ones who wait for perfect conditions, perfect plans, or perfect timings. They're the ones who act. And over the years, I've seen many talented leaders get stuck in what I call the perfection trap. So it's something to really be aware of. So people would delay crucial decisions, waiting for more data, they'd hold back on strategic initiatives, wanting to iron out every possible wrinkle first. They'd hesitate to communicate with their teams until they had the perfect message crafted. And what happens? Opportunities pass by, teams get frustrated, competitors move faster, the market shifts. And here's the uncomfortable truth Perfection is not just impossible, it's actually dangerous. Now I want to be clear, I'm not advocating for recklessness or sloppy work. Far from it. My coaching ethos has always been about helping people become the best they can be. But there's a crucial distinction between excellence and perfection. Excellence is about doing your best with what you have when you have it. Perfection is about waiting for conditions that will never exist. Let me say that again. Those conditions will never exist. So let me share three critical ways that perfectionism undermines leadership. First, it kills momentum. While you're perfecting your strategy, your competitors are executing theirs. While you're waiting for the perfect team structure, your best talent is losing engagement. Secondly, it destroys learning because real growth happens through doing, not through endless preparation. You learn more from one imperfect action than from ten perfect plans. Thirdly, it erodes confidence, both yours and your teams. When leaders model perfectionism, they inadvertently tell their teams we can't move until everything is flawless. That's paralyzing. I was recently working with a coachy who was putting off action because she was still refining the plan. When we unpacked the issue, it wasn't about the plan at all. It was about fear. Fear of making the wrong move, of making mistakes, fear of being criticized by others, fear of not being good enough. Does that sound familiar at all? And as we worked together, she realized the key insight. Her team didn't need her perfectionism. They needed her courage. They needed her to show them that it's okay to move forward with 80% clarity, to learn as you go, to course correct when needed. She took action the following week. Was it perfect? No. Did she know everything? Absolutely not. But you know what happened? Her team rallied. They started solving problems together. They built momentum. 18 months later, the transformation program she was working on became a case study in her organization for effective change leadership. So, how do we break free from perfectionism? Let me share some strategies. Firstly, the 80% rule. Sorry, rule? The 80% rule. Set a personal standard. If you have 80% of the information and 80% of the resources you think you will need, go. Take action. Will you sometimes discover you needed more? Yes. But more often you'll find that perfect clarity only comes through doing. Secondly, time box your decisions. Give yourself deadlines for decisions. Not just arbitrary ones, thoughtful ones based on when action is truly needed. This is something I work on extensively with executive teams. When you know that you must decide by Tuesday, you stop the endless deliberation and focus on what truly matters. Strategy three, reframe mistakes as data. I've talked about this before. One of my core coaching values is courage, and courage means accepting that mistakes aren't failures, they're feedback. Every action, even an imperfect one, gives you information that pure planning never can. A few weeks ago on the podcast, I talked about the power of learning from mistakes. And remember that leaders who embrace action don't see setbacks as evidence they weren't ready. They see them as evidence that they're learning. Fourthly, model imperfection. Here's something powerful. When you as a leader openly acknowledge when something didn't go as planned, when you share what you're learning, you give your team permission to do the same. You create a learning culture rather than a perfection culture. And this ties directly into emotional intelligence. Leaders with high emotional intelligence understand that vulnerability and authenticity build trust far more effectively than a veneer of infallibility. So let me leave you with a challenge. What decision have you been delaying? What initiative have you been just about to launch? What conversation have you been putting off until you have exactly the right words or it's exactly the right time? I want you to identify one thing, just one, where you've been waiting for perfect conditions, and I want you to take action on it this week. Not perfect action, not fully formed action, just action. Because here's what I know: the leaders who transform organizations, who build extraordinary teams, who navigate complexity with confidence, they're not the ones with perfect plans. They're the ones with the courage to move forward anyway. Remember, leadership isn't about getting everything right. It's about having the courage to act, the humility to learn, and the resilience to keep moving forward. If today's episode resonated with you, I'd love to hear about the action you're taking. Share your experiences with me on social media using hashtag LeadershipHorizons. Next week, we'll be exploring another crucial topic for leaders in our changing world. Until then, choose progress over perfection. I'm Lois Burton and this is Leadership Horizons, helping you lead beyond boundaries.