Anxiety at Work by Adrian Gostick

Author:Adrian Gostick
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harper Business
Published: 2021-03-11T00:00:00+00:00

How to Spot It

Before addressing what a manager can do to help perfectionist employees stay on track and meet their deadlines, it’s important to briefly share some insights about different types of perfectionism and how to spot them in a team.

The work of Paul Hewitt of the University of British Columbia and Gordon Flett of York University in Toronto has clarified that there are three basic types of perfectionism. When focused inward, toward the self, perfectionism leads individuals to hold unrealistic expectations of themselves and make punitive self-evaluations. This is self-oriented perfectionism. Alternatively, when people perceive demands for perfection coming from others—bosses, spouses, friends, even strangers—leading them to believe they must be perfect to gain approval from the world—they’re suffering from socially prescribed perfectionism. Finally, when perfectionistic expectations are directed toward others, people impose unrealistic standards on those around them. This is other-oriented perfectionism.

These are by no means mutually exclusive; people might be under the sway of several or all of them. But knowing about the differences is helpful in considering the best means of assisting employees. We can ask ourselves, Is an employee beating himself up, making critical comments about himself or his work? Does one worker seem to be thinking you’re expecting more of her than you are? Is another employee overly critical of the work done by colleagues or subordinates?

In terms of spotting that someone is a perfectionist, Dr. Alice Boyes, former clinical psychologist and author of The Anxiety Toolkit, advises that they might seek excessive guidance, seem loath to take any sort of risk, and treat every decision as if it were a matter of life and death. It’s a good assumption to make that those displaying perfectionist tendencies have anxiety.

Harvard University research adds that perfectionists tend to become overly defensive when criticized. Healthy strivers, by contrast, tend to take criticism in stride as they push for superior results. And while strivers tend to bounce back from failures, perfectionists often become preoccupied with their missteps or the mistakes of others.

Okay, so what’s to be done to help these employees? What follows are a series of methods we’ve found are helping in leading those with perfectionist tendencies.

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