The famous "serenity prayer" by Rienhold Neibuhr features an invocation for the wisdom to be able to tell what things one can change and what things are beyond one's control. The latter might be a notorious blind spot for your CEO, even if they exhibit other positive qualities.
After all, "perfectionism" is one of those nebulous words that seems to be a good and not usefully vague fit whenever a job interviewer asks the dreaded question "What's your biggest fault?"
But there is such a thing as being too perfect. Overstepping the boundaries of one's position and attempting to control everything can be serious problems, as the Harvard Business Review writes, and an executive recruiter may be the middle man who can help your company figure out if a seemingly promising person might have this kind of obsession.
There are, of course, ways to cope with the desire to take charge of everything and focus their energy in more positive directions. In that piece for the Review, Elizabeth Grace Saunders mentions some of these possible strategies, the simplest of which might be to teach oneself acceptance and stop trying to overstretch their resources.
"If you find yourself taking on an increasing number of projects and/or people, the only way to regain a sense of control is to, paradoxically, let go of control: let other people help you," she writes.
Some candidates will already know this, and may be able to provide examples from their executive experience of when collaboration beat out the ego. YES Partners prides itself on being able to find the right people for you, and give you the "wisdom to know" in those hours when you might need it most.
Finding people is easy, but finding the RIGHT people is not. YES Partners helps companies FIND the right people – for all company functions, across many industries and globally.
