Most leadership growth comes from doing the same thing over and over until you finally get good at it.

One of my life’s struggles has been perfectionism. I’ve made enormous strides in this area. But it can still feel like a challenge, especially when growth includes learning to accept ‘lower quality’ results. It just feels weird.

I enjoy woodworking. But my enthusiasm and ambition exceed my skill. Not long ago, I built a tool cabinet for my garage. Like most cabinets, it has all the standard shelves and drawers. But what really threw me off were the doors.

These doors are unique. They are deep and have pegboards set inside them, allowing tool storage in both the cabinet and the doors. This doubles my storage space. Since my garage serves as a workshop, space is at a premium.

The design was great. I purchased it from a pro. But I modified it. I already had metal pegboard panels that I wanted to use instead of the wood ones the plans called for. They were slightly smaller than the plans—so I needed to make adjustments to accommodate.

This minor modification led to a string of problems that took me over a month to figure out. No matter what I did, I couldn’t troubleshoot how to get the doors to hang square. (And by square, I mean perfectly square.)

Eventually, I got to where they were close enough. They weren’t perfect—but they worked.

To be totally honest, part of me wanted to start the project over. The fraction-of-an-inch difference didn’t impact function, but I didn’t like looking at it.

Then I was reminded of something I often advise my clients: Accept “Good enough” and move on. Instead of trying to make this one perfect, make the next one better. Leadership growth requires iterations. Getting many projects under my belt, quickly, is far more important for growth than trying to build a first-time project perfectly. The more you embrace this mindset, the quicker you’ll see the benefits of consistent leadership growth.

What Leaders Can Learn About Leadership Growth

As leaders, we often hesitate or delay action because of the fear of failure or making the wrong decision. Conscientious leaders have an appropriate concern about these things.

However, what most leaders truly need is more iterations—complete more projects, solve more problems, and learn from more less-than-perfect executions faster. It’s not that quality doesn’t matter, but the best path to quality is to try to improve with each attempt.

Here’s the key takeaway: Leadership growth comes not from avoiding mistakes but from embracing them as part of the process. So, take action. Build your leadership “cabinets.” Accept that the first ones probably won’t be square, but they’ll teach you the lessons you need to get there.

Mine is 100% effective at the job I need it to do, even if one door doesn’t hang quite the way I want.

What is one area where you need to accept growth as a process? What is the next step you can take to get more “reps” in?

Take good care,
Christian