Independent business blogs are blogs that aren’t supported by an organization like a magazine, newspaper, company, or business school. Those people provide lots of great content, but they don’t need any additional exposure. In this post, every week, I bring you posts of quality from excellent bloggers that don’t get as much publicity.

This week, I’m pointing you to posts by Ken Downer, Art Petty, Steve Keating, Kevin Eikenberry, and Lolly Daskal.

From Ken Downer: 25 Ways to Hone Your Thinking Skills

“The good news is that thinking is a skill, and it’s one that we can all get better at. The better we get at thinking, the better our chances to succeed as leaders. Today we’ll look at 25 techniques to sharpen your thinking that will help you level-up as a leader.”

From Art Petty: 6 Ideas to Turn Your Leadership Journal Into Professional Development Gold

“The idea of journaling sounds old-fashioned and even anachronistic in our era. Nonetheless, much like the simple but powerful checklist tool for productivity and quality, a properly maintained journal is a powerful and eminently utilitarian tool for promoting continuous personal improvement. For those responsible for guiding others, a leadership journal might quickly become your best friend in your drive to strengthen your daily effectiveness. Here are some ideas to put your leadership journal to work.”

From Steve Keating: The Coaching Cookie

“Too often however leaders believe the time for coaching is only when corrective action is required. They coach to ‘fix’ someone or something. Now that’s certainly appropriate but it shouldn’t be the only time you coach.”

From Kevin Eikenberry: Accelerating Your Learning in a World of Accelerating Change

“Here is a news flash – the world is changing. In fact, by many measures (including your own experience), it is changing faster than ever. For an achievement minded person, like you, this is exciting news, but it also creates an important reality: it is harder than ever to be truly great at anything. Since we live in a world of accelerating change, we must accelerate our learning if we want to be highly effective, successful, and productive.”

From Lolly Daskal: What Great Leaders Struggle With – But Are Scared to Admit

“After my keynote a crowd gathered at the back of the room, where I was signing my new book. Speaking with these accomplished leaders one on one, I began to notice a pattern. Many of them were using the content of my talk as a springboard to talk about their struggles—struggles they were scared to admit to others, especially their colleagues, their teammates, and their boards. The nature of their struggles fell into a few broad categories.”

That’s it for this week’s selections from independent business blogs. If you liked this piece you may enjoy my curation posts on this blog. Every Tuesday, “Leaders and Strategies in Real Life” helps you learn about leadership by studying what real leaders do. On Fridays you can wrap up your week with “Weekend Leadership Reading” consisting of choice articles on hot leadership topics culled from the business schools, the business press and major consulting firms.

How I Select Posts for this Midweek Review

The five posts I select to share in my Midweek Review of the Independent Business Blogs are picked from a regular review of about sixty blogs I check daily and an additional twenty-five or so that I check occasionally. Here’s how I select the posts you see in this review.

They must be published within the previous week.

They must support the purpose of the blog: to help leaders at all levels do a better job and lead a better life.

They must be from an independent business blog.

As a general rule, I only select posts that stand on their own, no selections from a series.

Also as a general rule, I do not select posts that are either a book review or a book report.

I reserve the right to make exceptions to the above.

Here, on Three Star Leadership, I post things that will help a boss at any level do a better job and live a better life. At the The 360 Degree Feedback blog, I join other bloggers with posts on leadership development. And, at Wally Bock’s Writing Edge, I share tools and insights to help you write better.

The 347 tips in my ebook can help you Become a Better Boss One Tip at a Time.