No one is perfect. No one can be right 100 percent of the time (even if you are Jack Welch or Steve Jobs), including an organization’s leaders. But there are mistakes, and then there are MISTAKES.

I have found 10 basic essentials that all leaders should have on their list entitled “things to avoid at all costs,” lest they end up on the wrong end of a no-confidence Board vote, a Shareholder lawsuit, or worst of all, an SEC subpoena.

Recently, I made an early morning phone call to one of my direct reports to own a blunder on my part. Not a great way to start the day. If you’ve ever blown it as a leader you know that these conversations are never fun. It’s humbling.

Great leaders hold those they lead accountable. But those we lead must see us as holding ourselves accountable as well. If we expect them to “own it” when they make mistakes, we need to first model this for them.

By nature I am a planner. I plan everything. And then I re-plan. I probably spend 90 percent of my time thinking about the future and planning for it. I consider my strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. I anticipate problems and consider contingencies. I have a Plan A.

But, unfortunately, Plan A rarely happens. When it does, it is awesome. But for me, Plan B is usually the norm. Like an old friend of mine used to say, “Do-do occurs.”

In recent years, I have noticed an increasing tendency for people to admit to mistakes rather than sins. It happens at every level, whether someone is caught cheating on their spouse, filing false insurance claims, or shoplifting from a clothing store.

After the National Enquirer broke the news about Senator John Edwards’ affair, he said,

“Two years ago I made a very serious mistake, a mistake that I am responsible for and no one else. In 2006, I told Elizabeth about the mistake, asked her for her forgiveness, asked God for his forgiveness. And we have kept this within our family since that time.”

Using social networking to promote our ideas or to sell a product or a vision can be a dangerous thing. It is so easy to fall into the whale’s mouth and exaggerate, inflate, or cover over the broken image of who we really are. In our eagerness to impress and sell, we can easily stumble and fall.

While projecting a too-good-to-be-true image may produce short-terms gains, it results in long-term disappointment. Eventually we can’t hide the truth of who we are. There is too much information already out there. The truth is that most of these people are just like you and me.

I usually get one or two emails a day from readers who have caught typos in my blog posts. Most go out of their way to apologize for bringing the subject up. Regardless, I am always appreciative. I fix the error, thank the reader, and move on.

However, on occasion, I get an email from a self-appointed member of the Grammar Police. They feel compelled, not only to point out my errors, but to chide me.

You don’t have to go far to hear someone criticize BP for the catastrophic impact of their oil spoil. The news media have chronicled every misstep. Psychologists, environmentalists, and social media experts have all weighed in on what BP should have done or should be doing.

Assuming you want to increase your blog traffic, there are certain mistakes you must avoid to be successful. If you commit these mistakes, your traffic will never gain momentum. Worse, it may plateau or begin to decrease.

How do I know? After writing more than 1,000 posts and receiving more than 60,000 comments, I have made most of the mistakes you can make—numerous times. As a result, I have begun to see certain patterns emerge. These are my top ten traffic-killers.

One key to leadership is the willingness to stand up and take responsibility for your mistakes. Good leaders do this even if they are guilty of only 10% of the accusation or problem. They do this even if the source is a carping, high-maintenance client. They do this even if there were circumstances beyond their control that led to the mistake.

Good leaders do this because it’s the right thing to do. They don’t do it for the sake of public relations alone. They do it because they failed to meet their own high standards of ethical conduct or operational performance.