What Steve Harvey's Miss Universe Gaffe Can Teach Us About Handling Mistakes

No one wants to be Steve Harvey right now. With an impressive resume of show experience behind him (Family Feud, The Steve Harvey Show, The Steve Harvey Morning Show) it came as no surprise that he would add one more gig to the list: Pageant Show Host for Miss Universe. But after hosting the pageant with his customary exuberance, he went on to make an internet meme worthy mistake; crowning the wrong winner. From his awkward reentrance to the stage to his misspelled Twitter apology, here are the noteworthy takeaways from Steve Harvey’s lamentable fumble.

He owned his mistake:

 There could have been numerous instances of people playing the blame game in this situation. Harvey could have blamed it on the teleprompter, the people operating the teleprompter could have blamed mechanical glitches, and pageant executives could have blamed it on Harvey’s freshman experience in the competition (he had one job!). None of that took place, with an executive for the pageant and Harvey completely owning their own “human error”.

While owning up, Harvey was visible:

 Maybe even painfully so. One can only imagine what level of courage it must have taken to go back on the stage and announce that mistake, but he did it. Harvey could have remained in his dressing room but he awkwardly trudged onto the stage, stood in the footlights, and took the blame. That act is a good reminder that no matter how uncomfortable the situation is, hiding from it will only make it worse. If it’s your mistake make sure you at least make an attempt to be in the spotlight. Your peers will respect you for it.

He apologized:

Sure he spelled Colombia and Philippines wrong in his tweet, but the point is an apology it was made. We often have the tendency to embrace all that comes with the mistake without actually apologizing for the hurt and inconvenience we cause. Or even worse, we couch our apologies in vacuous, equivocal statements like, “If I offended then I’m sorry.” Harvey dispenses with the noncommittal language and gets straight to the “I’m sorry”, which is in this case, the right thing to do.  

 There are many more messages which could be derived from this huge snafu, including how to win and how not to be a really sore loser (I’m talking to you Miss Germany) but in the meantime, let’s give Steve Harvey some props for handling a mistake like a true professional.