9 Lessons Vince McMahon Should Have Learned From Ted Turner

7. Leadership Does Not Mean Micromanagement

Ted Turner is a businessman first and foremost, and in his running of various businesses over the decades has entrusted the day to day running of those businesses to savvy executives, deputies and middle management, who have taken on the more onerous duties so that Turner could have a social life and not find himself chained to the office. Although Turner worked very hard - he lived out of his penthouse offices for many years before marrying Jane Fonda - he also played very hard, and required time away from work to do so. Conversely, Vince McMahon has a hand in almost every aspect of the day to day decisions that surround WWE - the structure of the business, the hiring and firing of the talent, the overarching storylines and characters, the day to day writing of the television shows, and the minute to minute commentating performed during those shows, to name only the most important for the wrestling product itself. There are dozens of other concerns for the chairman behind the scenes, and he€™s front and centre on each and every one. However, the above don€™t necessarily benefit from his constant attention. Quite the opposite, in fact. Because of his obsessive need to be heavily involved and/or have the final say in so much of what WWE does, the Vince McMahon stamp remains all over on the brand, and not only does the buck stop with him, but half the time it starts with him, too. The trouble is that without a rival for Vince McMahon to compete with, or some form of personal stakes involved, WWE has always had the tendency to slide back into a rut. Their programming in the first half of the nineties was almost unwatchable at times. There are many reason why WCW were able to appear so revolutionary by comparison from mid-1996 to mid-98, and one of them was the horrendous, dull, complacent WWF television shows. Similarly, for a long time now people have equated the present downturn in WWE€™s entertainment value with Vince McMahon being out of touch and creatively bankrupt. Notably, he has no hand in NXT, the developmental brand, or in the day to day running of WWE Studios. Both divisions of the company have become successful without his involvement, on a creative level for the former and on a financial level for the latter. Funny, that.