Nick Khan Admits to Making Mistakes in WWE Leadership

WWE has seen lots of changes in leadership over the past few years, with Triple H taking over as Head of Creative and Nick Khan serving as President. As great as they work together, mistakes are inevitable and now even Nick Khan has admitted to making mistakes.

While speaking to Stephanie McMahon on What’s Your Story? podcast, Nick Khan admitted that he and Triple H make mistakes in business all the time, but the important thing is that they have each other to rely on.

When one of them feels they might have made the wrong call, they talk it through, evaluate it together, and come up with a better approach if needed. They’re not afraid to admit when something doesn’t work.

“Paul and I—Triple H—and I make mistakes in business every day. The good thing is we have each other. We can say, ‘Hey, I think I messed this up. What do you think?’ And if one of us says, ‘Yeah, maybe that wasn’t the best move,’ then we think of another way. We try that.”

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When issues happen, they bring them to the executive committee or the senior leadership team, acknowledge what went wrong, and lay out a new plan. Everyone works together to move forward in the same direction.

Nick Khan stated that making mistakes is part of learning. If something goes wrong, he takes full responsibility. If something goes right, he gives the credit to everyone else and that’s how he prefers to lead.

“Then, in the executive committee meeting or with the senior leadership team, we’ll say, ‘Hey, this didn’t work. We’re pivoting. We’re doing X, Y, and Z instead.’ And everyone rows in the same direction.

If there’s a mistake—because we’re going to make mistakes—failure is part of learning But if it’s a mistake, it’s on me, not on you. If it’s a win, it’s on you. If we fail at something, it’s 100% my responsibility. If we succeed, it’s everyone else’s success. That’s just how I like to lead, and that’s how I feel inside.”

Nick Khan also tells his executives that if they bring him a problem, it becomes a shared issue since they’ll solve it together, or he’ll take the blame if they can’t. But if they don’t speak up and hide the problem, they’re expected to handle it completely on their own. If they fail to do that, it could impact their future with the company.

“What I tell our executives is—if you have a problem and you bring it to me, it becomes our problem. We’re either going to fix it, or I’m going to fail trying to fix it. But if you have a problem and you don’t bring it to me, better f****** fix it on your own, or there’s going to be a real problem for you when it comes to your future here.”

As for WWE’s strategy, Khan joked that when they’re unsure what to do, they either copy what the NFL does or do the opposite of what boxing does. The main thing is that it’s okay to mess up, as long as you learn from it and make it right.

“Look at WWE—we have two philosophies when we don’t know what to do: copy the NFL, or do the opposite of boxing. If you make a mistake in decision-making, that’s okay too. Just fix it.”

This comes after the company tried several times to reach out to Ron Killings after letting him go, but he ignored them until Nick Khan called him directly and worked out a deal. Nick Khan wants what’s best for business and his admitting to making mistakes is why fans feel he is such a great leader.

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