Last Friday, Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the National Football League, called a press conference to talk about the handling of the Ray Rice domestic violence incident. He walked up to the microphone, looked out at the large gathering of reporters, and said, “I got it wrong.”

I thought about his comment for a long time, not because he was talking about domestic violence – which is abhorrent in any form – but because of Goodell’s act of admitting publicly that he made a mistake. How many of us want to admit – to anyone – that we have been wrong?

I remembered a time about 10 years ago when I was a new advisor, and I made a mistake with a student’s schedule. I changed it without her knowledge and when she came to me, I brushed aside her concern and moved on. Later I received a call from a colleague on campus explaining to me that I shouldn’t have done that and why. That person also told my boss what happened. As bosses do, he picked up the phone and called me immediately.

“I heard what happened! Did you actually do that???”

“Yep,” I responded. “I blew it.”

“What?” he said, sounding shocked.

“I said, I blew it. I made a mistake.”

“Wow, I didn’t expect that,” he replied with a little chuckle. “I expected you to try to cover it up or make excuses.”

“No,” I said. “I learned from a boss of mine a long time ago that people screw up. When they do, they need to own it. Then they need to figure out how to fix it, if possible, or at least move forward in a positive way. So this morning, I called the student, apologized, and let her know I would not do it again.” My boss complimented me for the way I handled the resolution of the problem and hung up.

It’s true that I didn’t have to talk about my mistake in front of hundreds of people in a ballroom on national TV but I did have to admit that it had happened. It wasn’t comfortable, or easy. But saying that I got it wrong was the way to make it right.