Perfection vs excellence

One raises the ceiling. The other is the ceiling.

“Practice makes perfect." Have you heard that one before? What it really means is: “Practice makes things sustainable.” That single shift in framing changes everything about how leaders approach performance.

When We Are Do. Consulting clients describe themselves to us as perfectionists, it’s rarely a confession. Our clients wear it as a badge because perfection sounds rigorous, disciplined and committed.

In a coaching context, it’s worth pausing to ask: What is the pursuit of perfection actually doing to energy, decision-making and leadership presence?

Two North Stars, two different journeys

Both excellence and perfection function like a North Star. You’re drawn toward them and you organise effort around them, but the journey itself is where the work happens.

Perfection narrows your focus onto the gap between where you are and where you believe you’re meant to be. It measures progress against an ideal that, by definition, doesn’t shift as you grow. The closer you get, the more visible the remaining distance becomes.

Excellence, on the other hand, searches for your own imperfection and finds something useful in it. The pursuit becomes generative. Each iteration reveals something new rather than confirming what is missing.

Neurologically, sustained perfectionistic striving is associated with increased cortisol and heightened threat sensitivity.

By contrast, a growth-oriented mindset - one that excellence-seeking naturally activates - is associated with greater learning, resilience and creative problem-solving, because the brain is oriented toward growth rather than gap-closing.

The Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi

Wabi-sabi is a Japanese philosophy that finds beauty in imperfection, incompleteness and the natural cycle of growth and decay. Sophie Licht introduced me to it, and it has stayed with me (thank you, Sophie).

In leadership terms, this translates into something practical: the more you seek excellence, the more you are willing to look honestly at your own imperfection. Not to dwell there, but to learn from it. To find the next step from exactly where you are rather than being paralysed by it.

That willingness to be unfinished and in the process is, paradoxically, what drives the highest levels of performance.

A nugget from my own learning journey

I was 25 years old, standing in front of more than 200 people - professionals, journalists and political figures, all considerably more experienced than I was. I was the youngest presenter in the room and the last to take the stage.

I had prepared obsessively. Weeks of rehearsal with my coach and a marketing agency. Hours of repetition. I had drilled the pitch until every word, every pause and every beat of it felt locked in place.

Then I started speaking, and it went completely wrong. I could feel the distance between what I had practised and what was coming out. The room was quiet in a way that felt heavy. I watched myself from outside my own body.

At some point, I decided that something had to change. I took the microphone differently, stepped away from how I had been trained and began to speak the way I actually felt.

The room changed, people leaned in and, by the end, I got a standing ovation.

My parents were in the audience that day - two of the only people whose opinions have ever made me cry. When I saw the pride on their faces, that’s exactly what happened.

Looking back, the perfection was in the preparation and the excellence was in the moment I let it go. What I had trained so hard to be was professional. What came out was passion. These aren’t the same thing and one doesn’t come from rehearsal.

When imperfection becomes the teacher

This speaking experience stayed with me because it illustrated something that I now see regularly in coaching: the version leaders perform is rarely the one that moves people. The polished version protects, while the real version connects.

Excellence requires that you tolerate being unfinished in front of others, showing up before you feel ready and bringing what is genuinely yours into the room - rather than the version you believe will be accepted. That’s not comfortable, but it’s how leadership presence develops.

Perfection, pursued to the exclusion of everything else, creates a ceiling. You perform at the level of your preparation. Excellence, pursued with honesty, has no ceiling because your imperfections are also your teachers.

What this means for you as a leader

The question isn’t whether you should aim high, but what you’re orienting toward when you do. Where the standard is perfection, every gap becomes evidence of falling short. Where the standard is excellence, every gap becomes an invitation.

The next time you catch yourself over-preparing, over-refining or holding back until something feels “ready”, it’s worth asking which pursuit you’re in: The one that empowers you or the one that exhausts you?

About the author

I’m Dorothée Oung, Executive Coach and Neuroleadership Expert. I work with senior leaders and executive teams to apply neuroscience in practical, results-driven ways. My goal is to guide emerging and established Neuroleaders through deliberate, evidence-based practices that elevate how they lead, think and show up in the world.