Progression, Not Perfection: Why the Most Powerful Leaders Build in Motion

By Gina Alioto, VP of Brand & Marketing, Shaker Recruitment Marketing

Perfection is a mirage. The closer you get, the faster it dissolves. Still, we chase it. We design strategies and build brands and businesses as if there’s a final, flawless destination waiting for us.

After years of leading brands through transformation, M&As, growth cycles, downturns, digital revolutions, and now the realities of AI, one truth keeps rising to the surface:

The work that matters and lasts is rarely polished while it’s happening. Especially right now.

In the spirit of my birthday week and, like you, a recent survivor of the Year of the Snake (a season of introspection, shedding, wisdom, clarity, and intuition), top of mind is how the most transformative work (personally and professionally) never happens in pristine moments. In fact, it can’t. It lives in the uncomfortable middle—the unglamorous, unfiltered, in-progress phase where clarity is scarce and belief is foundational.

The thick of things are often the depths of greatness

Here’s something I rarely hear leaders say out loud: when you’re in the most difficult situation, you’re often closest to your greatest opportunity to lead. The problem is, you can’t see it while you’re inside it. Space and time are required to recognize greatness, and leadership rarely affords either.

When I’m guiding a brand through transformation, the complexity multiplies quickly. Stakeholders expect answers. Teams need direction. Cultures begin to recalibrate in real time. The competition is already ready. The stakes are high and you’re making decisions that will shape years of trajectory, while the ground is shifting beneath you and the market is already pricing in your hesitation.

Remember when Adobe was once known primarily as a boxed software company? Then Adobe made the bold decision to evolve from its traditional licensing model and reposition itself as a cloud-based, subscription-driven platform for creativity and digital experience. Despite Wall Street’s initial criticisms, Adobe pursued a cultural reset. Teams had to rethink how they built, sold, and supported products. Leaders had to retrain talent, realign incentives, and rearticulate the brand’s role in a creator-first economy. All of this happened while customers were skeptical, analysts were nervous, and competitors were moving fast. Adobe’s leadership was making high-stakes decisions with incomplete certainty, signaling a new future to the market while asking their people to let go of what had worked for decades. The result was beyond a brand reposition. It changed the power dynamic between platform and creator and how creativity is commercialized in the modern economy.

That tension between urgency and uncertainty is where leaders feel most exposed and vulnerable. And because of that, we experience our most meaningful moments as pressure: the difficult conversations, the unpopular decisions, the missions impossible. Yet, when we look back, we say, “That was it. That was the moment that changed everything.”

Proximity, both time and growth, distorts perspective. With enough distance, the pattern becomes obvious:

The irony? In the moment, it feels like risk. That doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong. More often, it means you’re doing something that matters.

Why the brands that endure rarely feel “safe” at the time

There was a line from ABC’s “The Golden Girls: 40 Years of Laughter and Friendship” that resonated with me. In reflecting on Dorothy’s final words of the series, one producer said, “It isn’t the most articulate; it isn’t the most poetic. It doesn’t have to be.” In the end, the simple yet heartfelt statement, “Your friendship is something I never expected at this point in my life,” was more than enough.

That show was radical, ahead of its time, culturally influential, and continues to be deeply relevant across generations. But I’m sure in the writers’ room at the time, it didn’t feel iconic. It felt uncertain, unconventional, and commercially unproven.

We quickly forget how real innovation feels in the moment because it’s far more comfortable to celebrate outcomes than to sit with ambiguity. And that’s why, if something feels safe or familiar while you’re building it… it’s probably already late.

Think about it: the brands we admire most didn’t feel legendary when they were emerging.

• Apple.
• Nike.
• Disney.
• Starbucks.
• Netflix.

None of these brands emerged fully formed. Their leaders intentionally put more value on their belief over the anticipated risk and move forward with conviction over certainty. And that’s what made progress possible.

Progression is the only sustainable advantage

Today’s challenges at hand go far beyond change. It’s the velocity of change. Technology, markets, culture, expectations; everything is accelerating and at a faster pace we’ve ever seen. New opportunities appear and fade faster than we can analyze them, and predictions expire before they’re published.

In a landscape marked by speed, perfection is a moving target defined by people outside of the work. Chasing it, then, becomes a losing game.

Progress, on the other hand, is real. Measurable. And ultimately, it becomes a leader’s greatest advantage: Progression, not perfection. The courage to keep moving with clarity, curiosity, and trust.

What we’ve learned in 75 years of innovation and progression

In recent years, I’ve had the privilege of immersing myself in Shaker Recruitment Marketing, a heritage brand that has evolved continuously for 75 years and paved the way for many in talent acquisition, employer branding, recruitment marketing, and the world of talent. The common thread of leaders at Shaker, its clients’, and partners’ success: longevity is intentional. It’s a commitment to how you build equally to what you build.

You’ll hear more from Joe Shaker, Jr. (A Letter from Joe Q1 coming soon) but from my view, Shaker has endured because doing the right thing mattered more than doing the easy thing. Because relationships weren’t an outcome, but the source of creativity and innovation. Because how people feel along the way shapes outcomes far more than any single result. That’s what makes brands and leaders iconic.

Progression is how organizations outpace competitors with more resources but less courage. It’s the advantage of leaders who choose forward motion over comfort, belief over approval, and accountability over certainty. This is what shapes industries and culture: the decision to lead with confidence not because the path is clear, but because the vision is.