Issue 16 of Read Before Burning examines burnout and perfectionism.

Welcome to Read Before Burning, the monthly newsletter by organisational psychologist and stress expert Dr Ben J. Searle. Come here for simple but informative coverage of burnout-related concepts, research findings, and actionable advice – all firmly grounded in science (and guaranteed AI-free).

Who am I? After earning a PhD in psychology, I spent 20 years in academia studying stress and burnout until I went through burnout myself. I now consult, research, and communicate about burnout.

I also consult, train, and speak in such areas as psychosocial risk management and employee mental health. Reach out if you think I might be able to help you!

BURNOUT AND PERFECTIONISM: A Balanced Perspective

I often discuss the factors that contribute to burnout. When I do so, my focus is nearly always on situational factors: psychosocial hazards, excessive work demands, harmful cultures, and other characteristics of a work environment (see RBB Issue 02).

This month I’m doing something a little different by writing about perfectionism.

Once upon a time, it was common for people to happily claim to be perfectionists, usually as a not-so-subtle boast about being highly competent. But today, perfectionism is increasingly seen as a bad thing. All manner of articles, blogs, and videos discuss the downsides of perfectionism and why perfectionists need to change their ways. After all, perfectionism is linked to a host of negative outcomes.

One of these is burnout. Perfectionism is one of relatively few individual factors to be consistently associated with burnout. This isn’t a controversial link, at least in terms of the science. Study after study has shown people who score higher on perfectionism measures also score higher on burnout measures.

Individual vulnerability to burnout is an issue that I believe needs to be explored honestly. Nevertheless, I feel like a lot of the commentary about perfectionism misses the mark. This article explains why.

WHAT IS PERFECTIONISM?

In simple terms, perfectionism involves wanting to reach or exceed one’s own high standards.

But there’s nothing so simple that we psychologists can’t make complicated — although we prefer the term “nuanced”. Some of the nuances of perfectionism might surprise you.

There’s no such thing as a “Perfectionist”

The first complication is that there’s not really any such thing as a perfectionist. As with most individual differences, the evidence doesn’t support distinct categories or types of people. We all exist along a perfectionism continuum, and most of us lie near the middle.

It’s rarely about seeking “Perfection”

Few of the people high in perfectionism are trying consciously to achieve perfection.

That perfectionism is about striving to do something perfectly is a common misunderstanding. It is fuelled by the misleading nature of the term perfectionism, along with much of the commentary about it that reinforces the link to perfection.

One consequence of this misunderstanding is many people don’t realise they are high in perfectionism. Even if they put tremendous pressure on themselves to excel, their misunderstandings about perfectionism prevent them from recognising it in themselves for reasons such as:

• They know achieving perfection is impossible. These people believe they are not perfectionists because perfection is never their goal. In their minds, striving for perfection would be illogical because, by definition, perfection is a standard no-one can reach. Instead, they believe they just want to do really, really well at this one thing (and often all the other things, too).
• They are regularly disappointed with their own achievements. These people may judge themselves harshly for limitations (however minor) in their previous achievements. Or they may still feel the sting of the harsh judgements of others. Either way, they don’t consider themselves perfectionists because their efforts never seem good enough for the term to be meaningful.

Perfectionism is multifaceted

Another way we’ve added complications to perfectionism is to break the phenomenon into different facets. Two important facets of perfectionism are:

• Perfectionistic strivings: the desire to achieve high standards, and
• Perfectionistic concerns: the tendency to worry about what will happen if your work isn’t high quality.

Plenty of people are high in both perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns. But subtle differences may be important! Research suggests perfectionistic concerns are associated with more harmful outcomes than perfectionistic strivings. (That said, more recent meta-analyses warn us not to assume that this means perfectionistic strivings are generally positive.)

WHY IS PERFECTIONISM A PROBLEM?

There’s nothing inherently wrong with wanting to do something well. However, those who have higher levels of perfectionism tend to experience more of the following:

Procrastination

If you’re desperate to impress others or to achieve something exceptional, this can undermine efficient work processes. You might struggle to pick the best approach to take or the best place to start a task. You might get stuck on the planning phase for so long you run out of time for execution and polishing. Or you might simply spend so much time completing one task to your satisfaction that you fall behind on everything else.

Self-handicapping

If you care deeply about being the best, or being seen to be the best, you may relish situations where you have the time and autonomy to dedicate invest lots of effort into achieving a good result. But how do you manage situations where you lack the freedom to ensure you achieve excellence? In such situations, people high in perfectionism are more likely to engage in self-handicapping to preserve their pride and reputation. For example, if feel a lack of control over your performance in an examination, failing to study provides you with a convenient explanation if you don’t excel.

Stress, anxiety, and burnout

People higher in perfectionism tend to experience greater stress, are more likely to develop anxiety-related conditions, and show higher levels of burnout.

But before we write-off everyone high in perfectionism, there’s an important question to ask.

WHY DO PEOPLE BECOME PERFECTIONISTIC?

Perfectionism is often driven by the belief that for others to consider us worthy, we must demonstrate ourselves to be exceptional. Such beliefs don’t emerge out of nowhere! Instead, they are shaped by our environments.

Many people high in perfectionism grew up in environments where attention, affection, or other positive experiences were only provided in response to excellence, and/or where failures to meet high standards led to criticisms or punishments. This observation spurred research into socially prescribed forms of perfectionism, where environments in which people are expected to consistently achieve high standards tend to encourage perfectionistic beliefs.

Which brings us to the workplace.

Organisationally prescribed perfectionism is defined as the “shared perception among employees that their organization demands flawless performance and holds them to unrealistically high standards” (Kim et al., 2024). Such workplaces can actively encourage perfectionistic strivings and concerns, along with greater job insecurity, more counterproductive work behaviours, and higher burnout symptoms.

You might interpret this as commentary about the harmful consequences of particularly toxic work cultures. But situational factors can also have incremental effects.

Recent research has shown day-to-day fluctuations in time pressure and criticism can affect perfectionism. On days when people encounter more criticism than usual, they experience more perfectionistic concerns. On days when people face more time pressure than usual, they experience more perfectionistic strivings and more perfectionistic concerns.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

There are clearly a lot of downsides to perfectionism. If you suspect you may have perfectionistic tendencies, I encourage you to look into ways to manage them. A good first step is to seek help from a qualified mental health professional.

And yet…

If situational factors have measurable influences on perfectionism, not just broadly but at the level of day-to-day variation, we need to recognise this and stop treating perfectionism as a individual flaw!

Instead, we should take a close look at how our workplaces encourage perfectionistic beliefs and find ways to prevent or mitigate those influences. Here are a few suggestions:

Performance expectations

How do you communicate to employees what they should be achieving, how much, and to what standard? How reasonable are those expectations? Perfectionistic beliefs flourish in environments where people feel pressured to meet unreasonable expectations.

Recognition and rewards

Are only the most exceptional achievements recognised and rewarded? If reliable workers go without recognition, this can create a perception that performance should always be exceptional.

Response to mistakes

Do errors and near-misses result in public scolding, or are they discussed without judgement to identify how the problems might be avoided in the future? Disproportionate responses to errors encourage perfectionistic concerns.

I drew these three suggestions from research on organisationally prescribed perfectionism. You may notice that even though they can all be shaped by workplace policies, they are all typically enacted via leader behaviour. So once again, leadership plays a big role in influencing the psychosocial work environment.

TLDR

Work environments that seem to expect perfection have the potential to make their workers more perfectionistic, which contributes to the risk of burnout. By identifying and modifying workplace policies and leadership behaviours, it should be possible to reduce perceptions that workers are expected to be perfect, resulting in healthier beliefs about work. With some effort, we can reduce both burnout and perfectionism.

References

Childs, J. H., & Stoeber, J. (2012). Do you want me to be perfect? Two longitudinal studies on socially prescribed perfectionism, stress and burnout in the workplace. Work & Stress, 26(4), 347-364.

Hill, A. P., & Curran, T. (2016). Multidimensional perfectionism and burnout: A meta-analysis. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 20(3), 269-288.

Hill, A. P., Kim, H., Ashdown-Franks, G., & Pratt, V. B. (2025). An umbrella review of a decade of meta-analyses examining the correlates of multidimensional perfectionism. Canadian Psychology = Psychologie Canadienne. https://doi.org/10.1037/cap0000450

Kim, B. J., Oh, H. J., Kim, M. J., & Lee, D. G. (2024). The perils of perfection: Navigating the ripple effects of organizational perfectionism on employee misbehavior through job insecurity and the buffering role of AI learning self-efficacy. Behavioral Sciences, 14(10), 937.

Mohr, M., Venz, L., & Sonnentag, S. (2022). A dynamic view on work‐related perfectionism: Antecedents at work and implications for employee well‐being. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 95(4), 846–866.

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Monthly Updates

• Burnout symptom status: Low!
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(c) 2026 Ben J. Searle