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 Art Petty, Kristin Hendrix, Ed Batista, Lolly Daskal, and Scott Eblin.

From Art Petty: Good Managers Observe The Characters, Not Just the Action

“In my experience, the best managers are devoted students of the art of character study—not out of some desire to play armchair psychologist, but rather out of the desire to help. These managers are keen observers of how people perform and conduct themselves across a range of situations. They look for clues that point to superpowers and situations that expose or amplify gaps. And they use these insights by tailoring their feedback and coaching to the individual.”

From Kristin Hendrix: 3 reasons for us to speak up, even when we’re new

“When we start on any new endeavor, there’s a lot to learn. Faces, names, norms…and don’t forget the ever-present acronyms! It may be tempting, while we’re drinking from the fire hose, to sit back and observe and absorb. Certainly, these are both good to practice any time something new is on the table. However, as we are observing and absorbing, what if something doesn’t seem to fit or doesn’t connect the way we’d expect? Then it’s time to speak up.”

From Ed Batista: Andy Grove on the Right Kind of Fear

“While I firmly believe in the value of psychological safety as a factor that contributes to high performance, I’ve also observed an unhelpful tendency in recent years to prioritize that quality above all else. [1] Anything that leads someone to feel distress is viewed as ‘unsafe’ and thus unacceptable. But former Intel CEO Andy Grove believed that a particular kind of fear can actually play a productive role in organizational life–the fear of losing:”

From Lolly Daskal: How The Best Leaders Prioritize Their Work For Maximum Impact

“Leaders are busy people and the best leaders know that that prioritizing their work is one of the most effective ways to stay productive when they’re juggling a lot of different tasks. But how do they make productivity work for the highest impact? These are some of the top suggestions I share with my executive leadership coaching clients:”

From Scott Eblin: How to Lead a Turnaround

“Lead long enough and, at some point, you’ll face the challenge of leading a turnaround. It could be about getting a team back on track, putting a key initiative back on the rails or reviving a business or line of business that has lost its momentum. It could easily be all three of those at once.”

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.

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