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Highlands Today

Running A Public Entity Is A Sometimes Thankless Job

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Highlands Today Staff

Published: February 1, 2008

It's no surprise that South Florida Community College's President Norman Stephens received a positive evaluation. He's as good as they come in his position anywhere in the nation. The fact is, our area is filled with leaders who do a fine job.

Stephens has continued a tradition of excellence at SFCC. If anyone's been critical of his leadership, we haven't heard it. That's amazing because rarely does anyone in a position of power maintain such high regard from so many people. Even many outstanding leaders, due to the tough decisions they have to make every day, generate a few enemies along the way.

City managers, county administrators, school superintendents and a number of other key positions are tasked with difficult jobs that require decision making that upsets some people. Often those jobs have a high turnover. A lot of city administrators around the country last about five years and move on, due to their inability to be effective.

Other people in highly visible positions are more like lightning rods. They always are in hot water with a lot of people over something. Sometimes those folks also do a good job, but they are stuck in a tough position that receives a lot of public input, which also means a lot of criticism.

It's easy for all of us to be critical of the people in these positions, but we should also realize that they make incredibly difficult decisions that affect a lot of people. While we disagree, most of us don't know what all went into making that decision. If we did, we might at least understand why the decision was made, even if we didn't like it.

Congratulations to Stephens for a job well done, and to all those people in public places who serve the public in a spotlight and maintain a well-run operation.

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