When I worked in the IT industry, I often advised my Project Managers to avoid leading with “I’m sorry” when fielding complaints from our clients. I would ask them to respond first with words of understanding and a promise to look into the issue immediately. “If after a little investigation, you discover that a problem does indeed exist and was caused by one of us,” I would say, “certainly, accept our mistake and make a sincere apology without any delay.”

Accepting our mistakes with a simple ‘mea culpa’ (‘my fault’ in Latin) has tremendous benefits. It signals to the world that we aren’t arrogant and that we will try to learn from the experience. It frees us to focus on fixing what went wrong instead of playing the ‘blame game’ or worrying about being found out. And a far greater benefit comes from the credibility we gain from such an admission. It tells others that we are not afraid to own our failures, that we aren’t insecure about who we are and what we do, that we can be trusted to speak the truth. Many years ago, quite inadvertently, one of my bosses sent out my performance rating to my peers. When I walked over to his cabin and informed him of this, he simply said, “I am very sorry. It should never have happened.” The only outcome of that meeting was that my respect for him grew immeasurably.

Why is it so hard for some of us to admit we were wrong? It could just be a habit for some who have taken the words ‘innocent until proven guilty’ to heart, and like Lord Emsworth, an unforgettable character in the novels by P. G. Wodehouse, we are great believers “in stout denial and very good at it.” We also may not accept our mistakes out of an inflated sense of superiority (“who are you to correct me?”) or a feeling that our apology will become a cudgel in the other’s hands. Yet another reason could be the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. If I think I am infallible, any mistake I make will hurt that self-image I carry and most likely, I will not be able to acknowledge such inconvenient truths. The hardest part of admitting we were wrong is perhaps admitting we were wrong, to ourselves.

Some of us may also assume that our mistakes will be seen as unforgiveable. When we do this, I think we seriously underestimate the wisdom of others. I believe our family, friends and even clients, to quote Alexander Pope, know that “to err is human” and evaluate us more on how we handle mistakes and learn from them. As a friend told me recently, the strongest relationships are forged in times of trouble, of stress, of conflict. How we behave in what we think are the worst of times can reveal a lot about the best in us.