Stephanie McMahon Recalls Vince McMahon Saying She ‘Failed Him’

Stephanie McMahon started working for her father’s company before she graduated from college. Once she earned her degree in Communications from Boston University in 1998, the Billion Dollar Princess started working for WWE full-time. McMahon has a great spot in the company now, even better than her brother Shane, but it wasn’t all success along the way.

Vince McMahon set a high bar for anyone working for him. He is a perfectionist and expects the same level of quality from his employees. The legend is true that if McMahon could do every job in WWE himself, then he would. This led to Stephanie McMahon taking her job far too seriously when she got to a position of power.

While speaking to the SBJ I Factor, Stephanie McMahon admitted that she once micromanaged a team to the point where her father had to step in. Vince then told Steph that she “failed him” in that role.

“I think sometimes when you make mistakes, that’s when you grow. Not all the time. You can certainly grow without making mistakes. But I think that there’s a lot of positivity when you make a mistake. Because if you own it, first and foremost, you assess it, you study it, you learn why you made the mistake and how to correct it, and you make sure you don’t make that mistake again. But I think it could be very painful.”

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“One key lesson that my father taught me — I was micromanaging. I was doing what I thought was right, I mean, all the best of intentions, but I really was absolutely micromanaging this particular team. My dad told me that I had failed him and it was a very, very hard, painful lesson, especially because he’s my father, not just my boss, right? To think that I had failed him was something I took on so emotionally and it was painful for me and I think for a lot of people, making mistakes and doing things that you wish you didn’t do are painful. But you grow from them if you’re able to, and it is worth it. It’s why I don’t have regrets in life. I’ve made mistakes, don’t get me wrong. I’ve definitely made mistakes. But I think I wouldn’t be who I am today if I hadn’t made those mistakes and had the opportunity to learn from them. I think that’s just so important.”

Stephanie McMahon is the face of WWE corporate as their CBO, and she is primed to keep that position for a long time to come. A lot of people around the company might be expendable when it comes to the bottom line, but Vince McMahon will probably never fire his daughter, even if she experienced a bit of micromanaging along the way.

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