Perfect Casualties

When a leader becomes consumed with the idea of what is perfect, it can cause a ripple effect of harm to themselves, their loved ones, and especially to staff and employees. This is because perfectionism cannot be contained. Like that burned popcorn smell that seeps from the microwave, polluting the air and everyone around it for hours after it’s been thrown in the trash, a leader’s preoccupation with flawlessness oozes into the fabric of the organization and lingers long after the leader is gone. One person’s relentless pursuit of perfection can set unreasonable standards for others, creating a near hostile work environment for the team. Everything must always be exact, not just according to the employee’s standard but according to leadership.

Furthermore, what the leader believes to be perfect may not even be known to anyone until what is submitted is rejected, often with great disdain or even violent repulsion. This is how some described the deep perfectionism of Steve Jobs, genius and late CEO of Apple.

[Perfection] pushed him to both hurt himself and others. Others have pointed to Jobs’s terse behavior with his employees. Some recalled him as “rude, dismissive, hostile, spiteful,” writes Gawker’s Ryan Tate, who discusses the manipulation Jobs used to “inspire” his workers. Yet, Jobs went beyond the pushy boss, who blows off the handle. “He screams at subordinates,” writes Gladwell and once told his public relations assistant that her suit is “disgusting.” He couldn’t handle anything less than perfection, and often took it out on others. (Rebecca Greenfield, “The Crazy Perfectionism That Drove Steve Jobs,” The Atlantic, November 7, 2011)

The double-edged sword of perfection caused both great success for the company and great harm for Jobs and those around him. At times, this maddening pursuit led to superior products developed in record time. On the other hand, his fixation with perfection created a lag in decision making, causing him to take weeks on mundane decisions like choosing a sofa or washing machine. (Greenfield, “The Crazy Perfectionism.”)

This is more than just a desire to be our best selves or to expect others to do well. Perfectionism is an absolute fixation on a vision of perfect and an unwillingness to rest or settle until that vision is realized. The obsession with an extreme version of excellence is so subversive, so cunning that leaders may not even recognize its possession until it’s too late. They may not consider their passion to be harmful until staff members leave or complain, close friends or family intervene, or they are consumed with the personal costs of depression, anxiety, burnout, or worse. Perfectionism in the workplace is often an attraction to those who like challenges, enjoy responsibilities, and frankly, those who like to win. These team members often subject themselves to torturous expectations leading to long days, late nights, and constant mental contortions just to please the exacting boss. While it can be argued that perfection draws perfectionists, calling their allegiance to the organization at the expense of other loyalties and commitments, there is no guarantee that these temperaments and pursuits will lead to any version of success. In these rigorous environments, team members suffer the collateral damage of anguish when decisions cannot be made or stress when actions must be taken to appease.

Perfectionism keeps leaders and teams in constant cycles of paralysis or frenzy, always plagued by the need to grasp an ideal that is consistently beyond reach. Both the leader and those who follow suffer the effects of poor mental health as the angst of decision making often leads to anxiety and depression. Even when they can see the damaging effects of perfectionism, some leaders cannot let go of their meticulousness and conscientiousness for fear of missing the mark or losing the competitive edge.8 They are afraid of messing up and worry that lessening of the pressure will lead to poor performance or a lazy embrace of mediocrity. As a result, these leaders may see their perfection as an organizational asset instead of a liability. They may see those who push against their standards as necessary losses instead of casualties, believing that the pursuit is well worth the loss. But what happens when the pursuit of the absolute divides and devours absolutely?

Perfectionism is a jealous, empty consumption. It leaves no room for anything other than a mirage conjured in our minds that will never truly be attained. It drives us to seek after it, to live for it, and to love it more than anything else. We pant for perfection, like dehydrated survivors in the desert, thirsting for its refreshing waters only to find ourselves lapping at the rough sands of reality. It pushes us to want it above everyone else and to sacrifice anything and anyone to receive it.

Because of the strength of its pull, the only way to correct perfectionism is to crucify it. We must nail to the cross that which seeks to engulf us. For some already held by the grip of the flawless, the fear of killing what we think makes us better can be overwhelming. You may be thinking, If I let go of this image of what is perfect, even if it doesn’t exist, won’t I succumb to imperfection? Won’t I give in to what is subpar? If I stop striving for what is perfect, won’t I cease to exist? This fear of falling into substandard living and leadership is a valid concern for those truly looking for another way. But to those of us who struggle to release the exactness of what holds us, God says, “have no fear.” The same one who calls us to nail perfection to the cross is the only one who is truly perfect. In Christ, we find the only true and loving image of perfection, and we can never reach what our hearts desire without him.

Jesus, fully God and fully man, is the only one who lived sinless among us. He set the standard for those who would follow so that we might be more like him. And just in case we were unsure of what perfection looked like, he gave some specific examples in Matthew 5. In a conversation with crowds and disciples, Jesus laid out what it meant to be perfect. It looks like being blessed in persecution and suffering for faith (vv. 3 12), being salt and light in a bland and dark world (vv. 13 16), fulfilling the righteousness of the law (vv. 17 20), refraining from anger and holding nothing against anyone (vv. 21 26), thinking no lustful thoughts (vv. 27 30), rejecting divorce and remarriage (vv. 31 32), making no oaths and keeping your word (vv. 33 37), not resisting evil (vv. 38 42), and loving your enemies (vv. 43 47). He closed these human impossibilities with one last command: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).

But Jesus knew that none of us could ever reach this standard in totality. None of us could be and do all that he spelled out in this chapter, and certainly none of us could be perfect as God is perfect in and of ourselves. But what if Jesus wasn’t calling us to do something to be perfect? What if this text was not about doing but about being in relationship with perfection himself? Could it be that our proximity to Christ’s perfection would imbue within us rays of divine grace that would be sufficient for our weaknesses? In other words, it could be that Jesus was saying, “Come and be in deep relationship with me and I will give you grace that perfects your imperfections.”