Is perfectionism holding you back?

As far as Kenneth Frendo CMgr was concerned, his perfectionism was a strength. One of the first 50 professionals to gain Chartered Manager status at CMI in 2003 and the first in his native country of Malta, Kenneth – who is the CFO of magazine, book, electronic vouchers, confectionery and miscellaneous homeware distributing company The Miller Group – approached his career with extreme confidence.

“I’ve always felt extremely confident in my abilities, from business and strategic planning, negotiation, budgeting and corporate finance,” he explains. “And I like to keep abreast of industry developments, so I am constantly reading management and business literature to try and develop myself further on a personal and professional level.” Always looking to test his skills and knowledge, Kenneth used the CMI Management Diagnostic Tool to see how well he was performing. “I got 97%,” he says.

Kenneth’s drive for personal development also led him to embark on a rather unique exercise in which to benchmark his skills and abilities against his peers. As Kenneth explains, every six years he’d apply for a job vacancy similar to his role at the time, to see whether he was shortlisted or even selected. 

“I never had any intention of changing jobs,” Kenneth admits. “I was just fixated in ensuring that I was up to a good professional standard in my field.”

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Colleagues and team members continually looked to him to make the right financial decisions, to lead or to drive strategy. He was in many ways, irreplaceable. But his perfectionism drove him to control everything he was involved with, which gave his people little room to act autonomously.