I was the editor of my high school newspaper. One night at the printers I discovered that someone on my staff had screwed up one of the page layouts. This meant a complete do-over and kept us all out late. I told our adviser that it was my fault. He said “today you became a leader”.

It was a lesson well-learned. Throughout my professional career when something went wrong, I’d stand up and take responsibility for it (fortunately, things didn’t go wrong all that often). By doing so, we were able to avoid all the blame and recriminations and get on with the business of fixing things.

Anyway, it worked for me and I wish more people would give it a try. Who knows, it might just make the world a little bit better for all of us.