Pleasing too many bosses is Achilles Heel at Partnership

We learned Wednesday that Panola Partnership CEO Sonny Simmons is no longer  employed with that organization after he announced months earlier that he would be retiring in March of next year.
It’s unfortunate that an individual who has seen the community through times both good and bad must leave under a cloud.
Any person in economic development will probably tell you job security in that profession is centered around results—results usually measured in obtaining big ticket employers like GE.
That hasn’t happened lately and although there have been additions and expansions there have also been layoffs and cutbacks in local industry.
Once a CEO of that organization answered mostly to his board of directors elected from civic-minded, dues-paying membership of businesses, industry and individuals throughout the county.
As that organization’s role expanded and more funding to pay the leader and his staff was sought, Panola County and the City of Batesville stepped up and kept the organization viable.
But with that taxpayer funding came scrutiny of both of those entities’ elected boards to the point that the executive director must now not only please a majority of his board, but also a majority of two other boards that hold purse strings to that organization. That is an unenviable task for anyone.
The now former executive director has also been personally criticized in public forums by a few members of those public boards when he was not in attendance and unable to answer the allegations, usually a common courtesy offered those in authority.
Criticizing a member who had not supported him in a membership news letter appears to be the “final nail” in the CEO’s employment coffin. It is also not common courtesy to bite the hand that fed you.
In Batesville’s heyday of economic expansion in the 1980s, leaders of the city, county, school district, the local legislative delegation and economic development agencies—both local and state, put aside differences and worked together to offer a united front to those who might consider locating in Panola.
Political division and the scrutiny involved with pleasing three boards may be enough to make qualified applicants for the director’s job run in another direction.
In recent history three previous directors of either the forerunner South Panola Area Chamber of Commerce or Panola Partnership have been separated from employment earlier than they wished, all in slow economic times.