Kellye (00:36)
perfectionism is sneaky. It doesn't show up announcing itself. It shows up disguised as responsibility, professionalism, high standards, but underneath it, it's not actually about the excellence. It's about fear. The fear of being wrong, the fear of being judged, and sometimes the fear of being seen.
I'm Kellye Mazzoli. I'm a coach for high achieving leaders who are ready to stop performing and start leading from a more grounded, more human place.
Charisse (01:04)
And I'm Charisse Deschenes most recently a deputy city manager. And I'm now studying to become a certified health coach. I work with leaders who are exhausted from doing it all and are ready to do differently. So together, we host Unmuted, this podcast for service-driven leaders who are tired of holding it all together and ready to tell the truth.
Kellye (01:25)
Hmm.
Charisse (01:28)
So today we're talking about perfectionism as Kellye mentioned, what does it really cost us as leaders and why we keep chasing it even when it hurts us.
I want to share a story kind of shifting to my personal life. And it's about leadership and perfectionism. a few years ago, I found myself in a situation where I was an interim city manager. It wasn't a job I campaigned for. was something that in the moment it was needed and someone had to step in. And that someone was me at the time.
And I was prepared on paper. I had been the assistant city manager for years and I knew that I could do the work, but nothing really prepares you to sit in the hot seat and nothing really prepares you for sitting in a hot seat when you're in the middle of COVID, which had actually happened. And we were also in the middle of a crisis in our community. So all eyes were on you, know, all eyes on me, the staff, the council, the community,
Kellye (02:07)
Mm-hmm.
Charisse (02:25)
You know the expectations they wanted clarity direction and decisions and there was a lot of pressure on me to get it right and on the staff. It was really intense. ⁓
Kellye (02:34)
Yeah. Yeah.
I remember that time for you. I do. I remember it being really tense. And if I recall your community was like in the national spotlight for a number of reasons that we don't need to go into. But wow. ⁓ Yeah, I remember that.
Charisse (02:48)
Yeah, yeah. And in that
moment, you're like, we just need to work harder. Or what is it we need to do to be successful as a community, as a staff, to really protect the people that were really hurting in the situation at the time? And I thought, well, if I just work harder, stay later, we triple check everything, we make sure we respond in the right way to every single concern, then ⁓
I won't mess this up or, you know, I put a lot of that pressure on me.
I realized that, and it took many years, like, you know, I've been in local government for a long time. And at first, when I was younger, I would make decisions and it would take me a long time to make those decisions. I'm sure if you ask some of my coworkers back in the moment, why is she taking so long? I would just reel over decisions and I couldn't make one because I wanted it to be perfect.
I think a lot of people out there are like that, but it kind of would stop me in my tracks too. Like, what do I do? And when I was in this role as interim city manager and you know, before that, I really recognize that sometimes the decisions, there's not a right or wrong answer, right? Many times there isn't a right or wrong answer. It is that you just have to make the best choice or make a choice and then roll with it. And then you make the next best choice. But,
Kellye (03:46)
Thank
Charisse (04:07)
I think that it is really that leadership's not about having that perfect answer. It's about having the courage to lead anyway, to do it anyway, you know?
Kellye (04:17)
Yeah, yeah, that story. I mean, it really hit so many points. I'm glad that we're starting this episode with your story about perfectionism because it's about, mean, you were in this moment as interim city manager with all these things happening, definitely events out of your control. And that's probably the worst thing for somebody who is a perfectionist, right? Like nobody was controlling COVID. Nobody knew it was coming.
Charisse (04:40)
Right. Right.
Kellye (04:43)
We didn't even have a way to sort of predict really what was gonna happen. It really is just such a good story and a good point about having to make decisions with partial information. That's what I felt like in COVID as well. I was just making decisions, but I never had the full scope of what was going on, at least not in the beginning. So when we're perfectionists, we think we're being careful, right? Cause you talked about though outside of this,
this point where it was like, no, you I got to make decisions. But before that, we sort of like stay in this. I'm a recovering perfectionist as well. So I understand this, like you just stay with something for so long and think about it and mull it over and you're you you put off making that decision. But you think about it as though or at least I did. So correct me if I'm wrong. But I was thinking about it as like I'm being careful.
Charisse (05:13)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Kellye (05:33)
being thorough. Heck, I'm even being noble, like giving this its due time and its due process. I don't know, was it the same for you or?
Charisse (05:37)
Yeah.
I think so, yeah. And, you know, I have to have enough information to make this decision. You know, I think that that really, yes, I was there with you.
Kellye (05:47)
Yeah.
Yeah. And,
you know, the reality though is we were just trying to stay safe. And I think part of me was really just trying to avoid being blamed. Definitely wanted to avoid failure. Vulnerability during this time was so difficult. And it was really self-protection dressed up. we have to make the right decisions for our communities. And, you know, the truth is, is I'm not sure that they were
Charisse (06:06)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Kellye (06:15)
100 % right decisions on any of it. And now we can look at it hindsight and maybe we would change course in some areas. But overall, think, you know, we made good decisions. This was the time that it caught up for me, right? It worked for a while. I had everything all together. I became known as the go-to person. Any job that I left,
they replaced me with like three different people to do the same job that I was doing by myself. And I'm not saying that to pat myself on the back, but that tells you like how deep my perfectionism ran and how I was always trying to make myself just so valuable in my perfectionism that I was always needed. I had to be good enough. But, you know, I was always the one editing the agenda. I was catching the mistakes. I was rewriting other people's drafts.
I always volunteered to take the lead on things. I was rewarded for it, right? So that kept it going. I got the praise over the course of my career. I mean, I was in the city manager's office for 16 years. I've now been coaching for almost four, so almost 20 years of working with local government executives and being one myself.
Charisse (07:06)
Mm-hmm.
Kellye (07:26)
I got the praise, I got the promotions, I had the trust from people, but really behind the scenes it can be quite crushing, right? You're up at night rewriting that presentation, you're stuck in the analysis paralysis, you're afraid to delegate because no one else is gonna do it, quote, right. ⁓ And I think there was just a level of me starting to disappear, Disappear in the role and the real me, the messy, creative, curious, evolving person kind of got muted.
Charisse (07:35)
Bye.
Mm-hmm.
Kellye (07:55)
at that point. And I don't know if you resonate with that, but that's that's sort of my take of what perfectionism was like.
Charisse (08:03)
Yeah. Kellye, think, yes, it resonates. I think it resonates with so many people out there too, that it almost consumes you in a way when you feel like you have to make this better. You have to do it in a way that's acceptable. If we don't do it one more thing, then it's not going to be right. And yeah, it becomes all consuming when you
when you find yourself in that moment. And then you also, it doesn't just show up like mentally or emotionally, it shows up in your body when you have that much stress coming in because you want to be a perfectionist. You know, during that interim role, I remember having so much tension in my shoulders and in my jaw. I remember
Shaking sometimes where I couldn't get my anxiety under control. I remember grinding my teeth at night. I couldn't rest. had other physical issues with my health. Even in a downtime, I couldn't rest. My nervous system was high alert, I would say, and always scanning for the next thing that could go wrong. What made it worse was that on the outside, everything looked fine.
I think everything looked fine. Maybe it didn't, but I felt like to the outside, I was masking it and it looked fine. I was getting compliments for the work that I was doing. People were saying I was handling it, the transition well. part of me was really thinking if they only knew or maybe I'm hiding it well so they don't have to, you I can shoulder this. It's my responsibility to shoulder this, And I didn't.
Kellye (09:18)
⁓
Charisse (09:41)
correct anyone and say that I couldn't handle it because that perfectionism really it's teaching you to hide anything that makes you look too weak in a way. So again, it's that fear. Fear kind of drives perfectionism in a way. And you work really hard in your career so that you learn and you know the answers. eventually the level of performance
cost you something deeper in your life. It costs you connection to others, to yourself. You lose that sense of what's enough and what actually matters to you. And for a lot of us, we don't realize that the body forces us to stop or until we're sitting in a role that we once wanted wondering why it doesn't feel good.
You know, I, feel like I had a moment of point where in time where I had to say, stop, you know, stop doing this. You need to make a change in your life. so how do we unlearn this? Right. ⁓ it started when I started realizing the job wasn't, you know, didn't need to be perfect. it was for me to be present. The people around me, they, they didn't need a flawless leader. They needed someone.
to work with, someone to talk with. They were professionals in their roles, and so they understood what they needed to do. And they just needed a steady leader, a real one, someone that could help make decisions and adjust if needed. And that was a huge mind shift that the leadership isn't about being bulletproof, It's about being available. You know all this, it's for...
The feedback for complexity and for change. mean, all of those things that we have been through as leaders in an organization, I think we've all been there. But in your head, when you get stuck, when you feel like you're alone in perfectionism and the reason behind it, you you need to stop and reevaluate,
Kellye (11:20)
Thank
I love that you've talked a lot about how it shows up in your body. So it's not just emotional. It's not just mental. It's also physical. And so these are all those flags that I just, you know, these are the hidden costs of perfectionism. It shows up in all these areas. It really affects the whole person. And when I work with clients, I would say,
Charisse (11:50)
Yes.
Kellye (12:04)
especially what I've noticed with women in city government, I see a pattern. And it's not just that they want to succeed. So that is sort of universal across men and women. But women tend to want to succeed and do it flawlessly. Right? It's like,
Charisse (12:24)
Right, yeah, yeah.
Kellye (12:26)
It's not just about succeeding, but it's also doing it like perfectly. And the moment that they sense that they're falling short of that, there's this level of shame that sort of creeps in and they start questioning their worth. And so they come to me with this overcompensation. This is when if you're overcompensating, you're gonna burn out because you're just trying so hard. So, you know, I just wanted to point out too that perfectionism has this tendency of isolating us and it keeps us from asking for help.
from admitting that we're tired. know, nobody wants to say that they're tired or really actually admitting it. Usually you just say, I'm busy, right? But you know, how are you doing? I'm good. I'm busy. it's really busy. But nobody's gonna say, hey, I'm not on top of everything. I don't really know who I am, right? That's not ambition. It's sort of an erosion of identity.
Charisse (13:00)
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Kellye (13:16)
So
not a lot of people are forthcoming there. But I tell my clients, there's just this mindset shift that needs to happen. And you don't need to throw away your standards. You just need to detach your self-worth from the outcome. So let yourself try things before you're ready.
Charisse (13:28)
Ha ha.
Yeah. Yeah.
Kellye (13:41)
sort of like what we're doing here with this podcast, right? Like we're trying this before we're ready. I don't know that we've done anything that has prepared us for this. Yeah. Yeah.
Charisse (13:45)
Yeah
No, I don't think we have and we're both recovering perfectionist as you mentioned.
One of the things you were just talking about made me think about what you said, know, women are coming to you and they want to be perfect. And there's that expectation that we be we're we're perfect or we're judged in a different way than men are. And it's it's not.
Kellye (14:03)
all of us.
Charisse (14:11)
I'm not trying to be judgmental in that way. I'm just thinking it as a fact. in what I've experienced, I think what you've experienced, we set a standard for ourselves that are different because we know we're being looked at in a different way. ⁓ mean, another thing we'll probably talk about in the future, but like there's a reason why that perfectionism is really, you know, sitting there with so many women, think from, you know, I think we unravel that eventually when we talk more.
Kellye (14:24)
Yeah. Amen.
Charisse (14:38)
But honestly, when we start to think about perfectionism as we've talked about here today, that's where real transformation starts when you stop trying to be impressive and you start being honest. So there's that contradictory piece of like, I gotta be perfect, but I also gotta live. ⁓
Kellye (14:50)
Yes.
You gotta admit it!
Yeah, you
got to be honest. You got to be honest with yourself. You got to be honest with others. You know, so I would just offer to the audience that if perfectionism has been a part of your leadership story, if you've used it to help you feel safe, to feel confident, to feel in control, that you are not alone, right? Like, Charisse and I have been there. And for so many of us, it actually worked. Until it didn't.
Right? It may have gotten you here, but it isn't going to take you where you want to go next. And I think it's so important to remember, like growth requires something different. Growth requires some discomfort. Like you've got to allow that. And so, you know, I just want to offer that if, if, you felt perfectionism and you've identified with what we're talking about, no, you're not alone. And no, yes, it did work for us for a while and eventually it doesn't. Yeah.
Charisse (15:49)
Yeah. And you grow. ⁓ Yeah. Let it go and grow. And, you know, it asks for your presence, not your polish. The willingness to be seen, not as flawless, but as a real person. The truth is leadership deepens when you stop performing it all and start inhabiting it and slowly, honestly, humanly be present, you know.
Kellye (15:49)
Yeah. But you got to let it go. Yeah.
Yep.
percent.
Yeah.
And isn't that funny? I mean, we're really, we're really working on this right now, like right here, right now, me and you. So if anybody's wondering, like you can't do it and it isn't going to be perfect and it's going to feel awkward. like, I mean, somewhat, I mean, I'm just going to be honest. I feel like I'm performing for this podcast a little bit. And I'm hoping that as we grow and we get better and we're a little more comfortable that, that, it's just going to get easier with time.
Charisse (16:18)
⁓ Yes, we are.
Absolutely.
Kellye (16:42)
We're gonna be able to fully inhabit and be honest and be human. So as we close, really wanted to leave you with a question, not as a challenge, but really more of an opening. What might shift if you gave yourself permission to lead without perfect?
Charisse (17:00)
and you are the expert in your own story. Remember that. And what we hope for you is that today's episode will help you hear yourself a little more clearly.
Kellye (17:10)
We can't wait to see you next time or hopefully you're listening to us next time on Unmuted. If you're not watching us, you're listening to us because this is a podcast first and foremost. we're going to be exploring things like identity and how that's maybe been wrapped up in your city management role or maybe your nonprofit leader role and what happens whenever that role begins to change or maybe to fade.
Who are you without the title? That's something that Charisse and I had to work with and deal with. So I invite you to keep coming back to Unmuted. We promise we're only gonna get better as we keep going. So until then, thanks for being here.
Charisse (17:48)
Thank you.
