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Have you ever found yourself in awe of a leader who demands nothing short of perfection?
I, Julie South, invite you on a fascinating exploration of the Perfectionist Leader’s psyche in our latest podcast episode.
We dissect the meticulous and detail-oriented nature of these individuals, considering how their high benchmarks shape the workflow and morale within veterinary practices.
By tapping into the DISC personality framework, I reveal how diverse team members can not only coexist but thrive under such demanding guidance, offering strategies to bridge the gap between different working styles for a more adaptable and unified clinic environment.
Takeaways:
- Perfectionist leaders are highly effective in roles where structure, reliability, and results are paramount, but they may need to work on softening their approach to improve team cohesion.
- Team members with different personality types may appreciate the perfectionist leader's commitment to excellence but can become frustrated by rigidity, micromanagement, or a lack of flexibility.
- Open communication is key to navigating the challenges of working with a perfectionist leader. Team members should express their concerns respectfully while acknowledging the leader's dedication to quality.
Discover your own leadership style and learn how to work more effectively with others by taking the DISC personality profile assessment. Contact Julie South at julie@vetstaff.co.nz to find out more about how this powerful tool can help you and your team work better together.
VetStaffleading veterinary sector recruitment in New Zealand | veterinarians | locums | nurses
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About DISC-Flow®
DISC is a research-backed and science-based personality profiling tool used to understand our behaviours, communication styles, and work preferences. It’s about understanding what makes you – and the people you work with – tick.
Julie South is a DISC Flow® Certified Trainer, who describes DISC-Flow® profiling as being like having a cheat sheet to better understand yourself and other people. When you know this, it helps you play to your personality strengths, work better in teams, and communicate better.
If you’re keen to find out what your personal DISC type is, what type of leader you are, or what your clinic’s team composition looks like, then get in touch with Julie to find out what's involved.
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Julie South [00:00:06]:
Today we're shining the spotlight on the lead vet or the head nurse or the practice manager, your leader, whose focus is on impeccable standards because they're driven by a commitment to excellence in every aspect of their team's work. Maybe you admire a leader who sets the bar high and pushes you to achieve your best. Or maybe you find the constant pursuit of perfection overwhelming and exhausting. These are both the realities of working with the perfectionist leader. So please stick around as we celebrate their dedication to excellence and explore ways to constructively help them understand their blind spots by looking through through a bit more of a wide angle lens. Thank you for tuning in to the Vet staff podcast, where veterinary professionals can top up their resilience tank, get their heads screwed on straight, and get excited about going to work on Monday mornings again, just like you did when you were studying. This is episode 185, and I'm your host, Julie south, certified disc trainer and resilience coach. The Vet staff podcast is powered by Vet staff Limited, the recruitment agency on a mission to help vet clinics recognize, retain and recruit their dream team.
Julie South [00:01:43]:
We show clinics, vets, and nurses how to crack the communication code that's unique to them. So resilience skyrockets and people want to join their clinic and stay there. You can find back copies of the vet staff podcast@vetstaffpodcast.com this is the fifth in our exciting eight part series all about leadership styles based on the disc personality and behavior model. Disc is a research backed and science based personality profiling tool used to understand our behaviors, our communication styles, and our work preferences. It's about understanding what makes you and the people you work with tick. So far, we've looked at what it's like working with four different leader types, the dominant, the dynamic, the inspiring, and the accepting leadership styles. If this is the first time you've picked up this podcast, you might like to go back and listen to those four episodes as well to see if you recognize yourself or your leader in any of those different scenarios. This week we are looking at the perfectionist leader style, how to work with them, and what to say if you feel you are being triggered by them.
Julie South [00:03:08]:
Now, I just want to clarify one thing. There's a difference between being a perfectionist leader and being a perfectionist, someone who strives for flawlessness in their personal work or activities, regardless of their role or person. So if you are a perfectionist, it means that as an individual, you cut yourself no slack. You hold yourself to high standards, but you don't necessarily impose those high standards on others, unless you might be the perfectionist leader. Just because you're in the veterinary profession, and we all know, and I say this with love and respect, how there's a bit of a tendency for veterinarians and veterinary nurses to be perfectionist. It doesn't automatically mean that you will be a perfectionist leader yourself. Using the disc personality and leadership framework. Perfectionist leaders are those who are methodical, they have an attention to detail and they are task oriented.
Julie South [00:04:23]:
Their way of leading is through efficiency and wanting to make sure that the bar is set very high. They think they're doing their team favors by always challenging them to be the very best that they can be. They are decisive. They won't pussyfoot around when it comes to making decisions. They'll look at the data and they will make a decision. They are problem solvers as well. They have analytical ability, means that they are fantastic at dissecting and unpacking complex problems, and they come up with wonderful solutions, effective solutions. They're detail oriented as well.
Julie South [00:05:08]:
They have an absolute attention to detail. That means that projects, tasks and processes are executed with precision and they are strong leaders. They provide clear direction, they're not afraid to lead from the front, and they often set powerful examples for others to follow. Leaders with a perfectionist profile can be highly effective in roles where structure, reliability and results are paramount. However, they may need to if this is you, you may need to consciously work on softening your approach to get some of your to get some more team cohesion going on. Because you are so focused on rules and procedures that you may end up being a bit rigid. You also may miss opportunities where adaptability, a bit more adaptability. That's like, you know, having a bit of a wide angle lens, it could be beneficial.
Julie South [00:06:17]:
And because you don't like tension and you are action oriented, it's highly likely that you'll be very proactive in resolving any disagreements as they come up from time to time. If you work with a head vet who insists on double checking every diagnosis and treatment protocol because they believe in absolute precision and they are driven to gold standard care for their patients, then you could be on a perfectionist's team. Likewise, a perfectionist head vet nurse would be someone who meticulously organizes every aspect of the clinic's operation because they're 100% committed to creating an environment where clinical excellence, gold standard, is the norm and where errors are minimised. As you can imagine, because the perfectionist leader's emphasis is on perfection. Funny that it could potentially lead to missed deadlines or opportunities, because they sometimes can have an excessive focus on details and an ability to to accept that good enough is actually good enough. Now, what's it like being on a team? So you're the team member and you have a perfectionist leader. Let's have a look at each of the major four disc personality types and let's look at where things will work well, where they could break down and then what it looks like sort of big picture. So if your preference is, if you are someone who's task oriented yourself and you like to get things done fast, then there'll be a bit of synergy there because you are both action oriented people.
Julie South [00:08:23]:
So you'll appreciate the high standards and the clear direction because it aligns with your own goal oriented focus and your desire to see tangible results. Now, where things could go a little bit awry, things will start breaking down and fraying at the edges, is you could get frustrated by their meticulousness, the processes. You might feel that it's even micromanagement because all of this for you will feel like an imposition. It will impede your need for speed and your autonomy, the autonomy that you like when you're making decisions. You may feel that your perfectionist leader is perhaps too controlling or detail focused. And for you that's a roadblock because it slows down progress and innovation. If you are the type who is people oriented, you are known as an influence type. You still like to keep things moving at pace.
Julie South [00:09:35]:
Then where things work really well for you and your perfectionist leader is you will appreciate the structure and their organization because it provides a framework which you can work within to exercise your amazing interpersonal skills and your absolute passionate enthusiasm. Things will start to fray at the edges though, is because you'll get frustrated by a lack of flexibility and more of an emphasis on procedure. And you can feel that that will limit your creativity, your vibrancy and the free flowing work environment that you thrive in overall. It means that for you, your perfectionist leader could be somewhat restrictive and maybe they don't. You feel that they don't fully value the power of the team dynamics and creative thinking that comes about when everyone is involved, which is what you want. If you are the steady as she goes people, focus, steadiness person who likes to know all the angles have been looked at and everyone is on board. Then for you, things will work really well because you'll appreciate the predictability and the consistency, because that's what lights you up. It's all about being steady, stable and having harmony at work, things will start to fray though you could feel frustrated by the constant pressure for perfection because for you it will feel like there's an atmosphere of continuous stress that conflicts with your need for having a supportive and a collegial a collaborative environment.
Julie South [00:11:25]:
You could be of the view that your perfectionist leader is demanding, maybe to the point that it negatively impacts team morale and or personal job satisfaction. And then finally, for the compliance person who likes to see their I's dotted and their t's crossed, who is also results oriented, then what you will appreciate, where you will appreciate is that there are attention to detail and adherence to high quality standards because for you it kind of mirrors your methodical approach and your commitment to excellence. Things will start to fray at the edges and break down as you'll most likely get frustrated by what you see is rigidity or an inflexibility in problem solving approaches because it will hinder your desire to thoroughly analyze and optimize systems and procedures. This means that overall you'll be of the view that your perfectionist leader is competent but potentially lacking in adaptability, which could lead to missed opportunities or for improvement or innovation as far as you're concerned, in your opinion. Now, we just talked about some of the strengths and the possible development areas for perfectionist leaders to be aware of as they play out with different types of personalities on their team. Now let's just go a little bit deeper and look at the triggers and what you might think or feel at the time that that button is pressed, that trigger goes off and then what you can say possibly to mitigate it. So let's you are the get it done now type of personality you will find yourself triggered when your ability to make fast decisions and drive results is stymied, is hampered by what you perceive as unnecessary perfectionism. This includes when you're being asked to look at your work again, just have another look, or multiple times.
Julie South [00:13:53]:
Or perhaps your leader goes through your work multiple times for minor improvements, when you feel like you're having your decisions constantly scrutinized, or perhaps you face pushback on what you think is a calculated risk, but it's just to maintain the status quo. So if you feel like you are getting impatient or you're constrained, you might have the thought of we're losing valuable time on details that don't affect the big picture, or that you are being second guessed at every turn. Then here's what you might say if that feels right for you. Obviously change the words to fit for you. I appreciate your high standards but I'm concerned that our focus on perfecting every small detail is causing us to miss out on key opportunities. How can we strike a balance that allows us to act decisively and yet maintain quality? Now, if you are the fast acting collaborator, you're the influence type, the eye type for you. You may feel restricted when a highly structured and critical environment limits your ability to express ideas freely, which is what you love doing and engage with others. Being in situations where the emphasis feels to you more like fault finding than encouraging creative input, or where formalities take precedence over being collaborative and collegial that for you could feel stifling.
Julie South [00:15:45]:
You might feel discouraged or disheartened. You might still start thinking things like your creative input is being ignored or the team's energy is being drained by all these rules. If that's you, if those thoughts are hot's crossed your mind, then here's what you could say. Your dedication to quality is something I admire. However, I feel that we could get better results if we collaborated more. I'd like to see some more open sessions for brainstorming or ideas sharing without the pressure of everything having to be perfect at the first pass or straight away. Next, if you are the steady as you go, people focused team member who likes direction so that you can plan steadiness as your thing, then you might be triggered by what you see as a relentless pursuit of perfection that doesn't account for emotional well being of the team or the value of consistent, steady effort. High pressure demands for perfect work without enough time for consideration or adequate support and backup for you can be especially demoralizing.
Julie South [00:17:08]:
You might start to feel disheartened. You might start to feel overburdened. You think possibly the team's effort isn't being recognised unless everything is perfect first. Or you may feel that everyone is on edge because they're all trying to avoid making any small mistakes. If that's the kind of thinking that you might have, then here's what you could say. I respect the high standards we're aiming for. However, I'm noticing signs of burnout in the team. Could we perhaps look at ways to ensure that everyone's efforts are acknowledged and that we maintain team support while still striving for the excellence that you're looking for? And then finally, if compliance is your thing, you dot your I's, cross your t's, you get results and you like to be considered action oriented.
Julie South [00:18:09]:
Then you'll be triggered when there's a push to keep things or processes moving or done at the expense of thoroughness or precision for you. Situations where you feel pressure to cut corners, maybe skip steps and established systems and procedures, or you feel like you're having to make decisions without sufficient data or analysis that will be stressful for you. You may start to feel anxious or compromised. You may start thinking things like this rush is going to come back to bite us, or we're not being given enough time to focus on the details that are important. So if that's how you are feeling, then what you could say is we're both on the same page when it comes to producing excellent work. However, I'm concerned that our current speed, our current pace will compromise standards. I'd like it if we could look at what we're doing to make sure that accuracy isn't being sacrificed for speed. I hope you found this helpful as a teeny, tiny, incy wincy dinky little bit way little way to understand yourself a bit better and how you might relate to someone who has a perfectionist leadership personality style.
Julie South [00:19:43]:
Next week we're going to look at the methodical leader. They are described as people who are systematic, maybe even private and logical with high standards. So remember to click that follow button on your podcast app of choice so you don't miss out on that episode. Have you ever wondered what makes you take taking the disc personality profile assessment gives you that information, plus how to get on better with other people. For leaders, you'll discover your leadership skills and your strengths. When everyone in your clinic is assessed, your team's collaboration levels will go through the roof. I guarantee it because everyone will understand everyone else better. Interested to know more or to find out what that guarantee looks like? Please get in touch with me.
Julie South [00:20:40]:
Julie at Vetstaff Dot co dot UK dot congratulations on getting this far. You are part of an elite group over listeners who have made it all the way to the end. I'm going to assume therefore you like what you've heard. If so, please help me spread the Vetstaff podcast love. All you have to do is share it with three veterinary friends of yours who you think may be losing their mojo, or your manager because you can see that what we've talked about today is definitely beneficial to your clinic. Thank you for doing that. Visit vetstaffpodcast.com. This is Julie south signing off and inviting you to go out there and be the most fantabulous, resilient and empowered version of you you can be.
Julie South [00:21:39]:
The Vet staff podcast is proudly powered.
Julie South [00:21:42]:
By vetclinicjobs.com, the new and innovative global job board reimagining veterinary recruitment. Connect in veterinary professionals with clinics that shine online. Vetclinicjobs.com is your go to resource for finding the perfect career opportunities and helping vet clinics power up their employer branding game. Visit vetclinicjobs.com today to find vet clinics that shine online so veterinary professionals can find them. Vetclinicjobs.com.
