It’s amazing, isn’t it? That feeling you get when you deliver a piece of work or a presentation that you know is as good as you can possibly make it? The late nights, stress and the obsessing over details now feels completely, utterly worth it.
As a perfectionist, your dedication to getting things right really gets you noticed at work. When you’re put on a project, you shine, and your managers can assign you tasks knowing without a shadow of a doubt that you will deliver high-quality work. No ‘near enough’s good enough’ for you. (The very idea makes you shudder.)
Many of the greatest achievers- in sport, in science and technology, in business- are self-proclaimed perfectionists. It is their dogged determination to do their best- to BE the best-that drives them to keep practicing their craft, and tinkering with projects until they are bullet-proof. They believe in perfection, and they will work until they reach it.
Why Being a Perfectionist Can Be Brilliant for Your Career
Perfectionists are powerful in the workplace because their burning need to get things right can lead them to produce astonishingly high-quality work.
Perfectionists gain respect for their achievements, both from their peers and their managers. They quickly become known as a trusted hand by managers and are often promoted quickly. Other people tend to view perfectionists as admirable, even inspirational, in their drive and success.
A perfectionist is a particularly good choice to look over new systems and processes, as they are extremely detailed-minded. They will fear missing something, so will go over information with a fine-tooth comb.
They also tend to be fiercely organised, with their own systems and processes in place to avoid inefficiency.
Because they don’t like missing things, perfectionists tend to anticipate problems that other people haven’t seen yet. As a result, their projects tend to be quite ‘bullet-proof’, and rarely have to be re-worked. A perfectionist will edit painstakingly and check that each detail is correct before submitting the work, meaning that the manager or client rarely faces frustrating glitches or silly errors.
When it comes to clients that are more difficult to please, a perfectionist is the ideal person to put on the case. ‘Fussy’ clients are generally perfectionists themselves, and only a fellow perfectionist will understand their drive to get things right and be able to perform at the required level to keep the client happy.
Perfectionists, therefore, are a formidable addition to a workplace, and can drive the company to new heights.
However, those of you who are proud perfectionists yourselves or happen to know a perfectionist closely, will also realise that there can be dramatic downsides to having the ‘perfectionist gene’. Next week, we’ll address the other side of the coin: ‘The Despair of Being a Perfectionist’, and come up with some strategies to counter its most negative effects.
Until next time
