Why Is It So Hard to Admit You've Made a Mistake?

When Ulysses S. Grant successfully took Vicksburg during the Civil War, no one could have been more surprised than the Union army’s commander-in-chief. Lincoln had wanted Grant to play it safe and considered the general’s audacious campaign — cutting loose from his supply lines, running his gunboats past the fortress’s batteries in the dark, and marching his army into enemy country — to be foolhardy.

Once the victory was won, the president could have simply sent his congratulations. Instead, Lincoln wrote Grant a letter that confessed the doubts he had held, detailed each turn where the general’s judgment had bested his own, and closed with: “I now wish to make the personal acknowledgment that you were right, and I was wrong.”

Such a frank admission still hits us like a clean gust of air. It’s rare these days (and perhaps always has been) for a leader (or anyone, in fact) to admit they messed up. What we get instead — whether in politics, business, or our personal lives — is silent avoidance, stubborn denial, or vague hand-waving: “Mistakes were made.”

Why is admitting mistakes so uncommon?

Beyond issues of liability in the corporate context or concerns about reelection in the political one, much of people’s reluctance to own their errors comes down to shame and embarrassment. They fear that in confessing a mistake, they will seem less-than in other people’s eyes.

This is one of the stranger impulses of human nature, because typically admitting mistakes actually engenders respect; it strengthens relationships. How refreshing it is to hear someone say: “I regret that choice.” “I was wrong.” “I’m sorry.” It shows that the person possesses humility, and, perhaps even more importantly, self-awareness. What a relief it is for someone to say: “Yes, I can see the same thing that you can see: I goofed.”

Hard as it is to admit a mistake to someone else, people often don’t even reach the point where they wrestle with that disclosure, as they can’t admit their mistakes to an even more fundamental party: themselves.

Today I’ll unpack the deep and fascinating reasons why we have a tendency to shirk responsibility, an understanding of which unlocks the capacity to get better at owning, and learning from, our missteps and blunders.