Who is a famous perfectionist

Of course, the reality is there is most likely not much actual pressure being directed their way, but a perfectionist cannot see that. There is also the flip side of this equation, where perfectionists place high levels of pressure on others by setting ridiculous expectations.

Cleverly dubbed "constructive sniping" by career coach Liz Ryan, this tendency by many managers to not acknowledge successes as often as picking out flaws can very easily create a negative culture in your company, and is the quickest way to lose talent.

You would never want a perfectionist as your boss There is no doubt that Steve Jobs left an enormous legacy at Apple. However, his quest for perfection was at times extremely expensive. To quote The New Yorker, "Jobs's vision required Apple to control every part of the user experience, and to make everything it possibly could itself. Its hardware was proprietary: the company had its own Mac factory and favored unique cables, disk drives, and power cords, rather than standardized ones.

Its software was proprietary, too: if you wanted to run Apple software, you needed to own an Apple computer. This made Apple's computers more expensive than the competition. There is always a trade-off between being perfect and being cheap. Somewhere in the middle lies the combination found by many of the world's most successful business leaders.

Let's say you have an important task that needs to be completed to ensure your business succeeds. Maybe it's launching your first major marketing campaign, building out a new core feature on your website, or getting your new product prototypes finished. Employee A is an efficient and capable worker who tries to perform her job to the best of her abilities. If you delegate the task to this person, you know that it will be done, but the performance is unlikely to be groundbreaking.

Employee B is an obsessive perfectionist who will promise to perform the task at a level that will be outstanding. Experience, however, suggests that this employee will oversell her abilities, and if she finishes the job at all, it will take twice as long to complete as Employee A would take.

Top Stories. Top Videos. Getty Images. Perfectionism can help overachievers to continually chase higher standards and expanded visions. Dow Jones. By Melinda Beck. To Read the Full Story. Subscribe Sign In. Continue reading your article with a WSJ membership. Resume Subscription We are delighted that you'd like to resume your subscription. They both go by one name. They both have voices that could save lives. They're both mothers.

Perhaps most important though, both women are perfectionists. It's how they choose to do it that says a lot about the women themselves and society's expectations of them. In case you needed a reminder of this, for her Grammys performance last Sunday night she donned a golden headpiece that made her look like a goddess. She knows just as much as we do that she exists on a different plane than the rest of us. She makes it look effortless while also letting it be known that only she could ever pull it off.