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 Suzi McAlpine, Tanmay Vora, Chris Edmonds, Jesse Ly Stoner, and Mary Jo Asmus.

From Suzi McAlpine: Why Leaders Should Channel The Counterintuitive

“When the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami struck Japan in 2011, fishermen knew from the wisdom of their ancestors to head OUT to sea. To head TOWARDS the giant wave.”

From Tanmay Vora: Leadership and The Art of Effective Listening

“There is no leadership, personal or organizational, without listening. In fact, ability to truly listen (and not just hear) is the foundation of having a conversation, building trust, influencing others, resolving conflicts, driving your vision, building relationships, implementing change and learning. Yet, many of us equate listening with absorption of what the other person is saying. There’s more to it!”

From Chris Edmonds: Heads or tails? Three keys to better decision-making

“How good a decision-maker are you? Every day, you make decisions that impact your quality of life, your well-being, your effectiveness, your relationships, and more.”

From Jesse Lyn Stoner: Q&A with Jesse Stoner on Challenges Facing Leaders Today

“I was recently on a panel looking at the future of leadership. Here are my responses to how to face today’s challenges in a way that prepares us for the future.”

From Mary Jo Asmus: How to save yourself when work stinks

“I’ve recently had the unpleasant experience of discovering that I really don’t like parts of what I do in my work. It had become tedious, frustrating, difficult to focus on and it tainted my work and my life in a negative way that I was unaccustomed to, since overall, I love what I do. Something needed to change.”

That’s it for this week’s selections from independent business blogs. If you liked this piece you may enjoy my regular post on “Leadership Reading to Start Your Week” points you to choice articles from the business schools, the business press and major consulting firms about strategy, innovation, women and the workplace, and work now and in the future. Highlights from the last issue include how to find and engage authentic informal leaders, the future of fintech, how Charles Koch challenges his innovators, women are upgrading the leadership rules, and three more articles on holocracy.

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.

If you’re a boss, you should check out my Working Supervisor’s Support Kit.