Trying to Do It All Isn't Making You a Better Leader
You sit at your laptop, still ploughing through emails that arrived after you left the previous meeting, working through another evening. Your to-do list has grown longer, not shorter, despite working through lunch again. The strategic planning session you promised yourself this afternoon got pushed aside for yet another urgent request. Tomorrow you’ll start early to catch up, then stay late to handle what couldn't wait. The never-ending cycle continues.
Sound familiar? If you're nodding along, you may be experiencing what 85% of charity leaders report, chronic stress from trying to manage everything on their plates.
But here's what no one tells you; striving to do everything (and do it perfectly) is making you a worse leader, not a better one.
The perfectionism trap
Within the charity sector we have a culture where good enough feels like we’re coasting, like we’re giving up. We're conditioned to believe that anything less than our absolute best, anything less than going the extra mile somehow betrays the people we serve. But this thinking is fundamentally flawed.
When you push yourself to breaking point, you can't achieve anything meaningful. You're too exhausted for strategic thinking. Too overwhelmed to support your team effectively. Too burnt out to innovate or inspire. You've sacrificed yourself for diminishing returns.
What good enough leadership actually delivers
Contrary to what we might believe, leaders who set realistic standards create better outcomes. They have energy for the strategic thinking that moves organisations forward. They model sustainable working practices that prevent team burnout. They focus their limited time on what truly matters rather than trying to perfect everything. After all good enough and done is better than incomplete and perfect.
It isn't about lowering the quality of your work, or the services you deliver, it's about strategic focus, maintaining your wellbeing and creating a healthy organisation.
Making the shift
Establishing realistic expectations starts with three practical changes.
Boundaries around availability: Decide when you finish work and stick to it, don’t check your emails, don’t tell people call me. Set specific times during the day for checking emails rather than being constantly reactive. Yes, there may be the odd emergency that does need your attention out of hours, but this should be the exception, not the rule.
Protect strategic thinking time: Block out non-negotiable time for planning and reflection throughout your week, it might be a chunk of time on a Monday & Friday, or an hour a day. Without this, you'll remain trapped firefighting, never able to work effectively.
Questioning what's relevant:
Before saying yes to any request, ask yourself:
Is this my responsibility?
How does it serve our mission?
Is this a good use of my time?
With these in place you will have a better foundation in place to consider what you actually have time to achieve each week, and will enable you to be realistic about the expectations you set yourself
The organisational benefit
When you start working in a way which focusses on what is good enough, you give your entire organisation permission to work sustainably too. Your teams will perform better when they're not exhausted. Innovation happens when people have headspace to think creatively. Quality improves when energy is focused rather than pulled across a variety of ‘urgent’ demands.
The irony is that by doing less, you often create more impact.
Your permission slip
You don't need to sacrifice your wellbeing to make a difference in the world. The sector's demand for perfectionism isn't serving anyone; not you, not your team, and certainly not the people you're trying to help.
It's time to embrace good enough leadership. Not because you're settling for less, but because it's the only way to sustain the energy needed for long-term impact.
Your organisation deserves leaders who can think strategically, support their teams, and model healthy working practices. That leader shows up when you stop trying to be perfect and start being strategic.
Ready to explore what good enough leadership looks like for you? Book a free 30-minute call to discuss creating realistic standards that serve both your wellbeing and your mission.