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, Lolly Daskal, Steve Keating, Todd Ordal, and Art Petty.

From Suzi McAlpine: 21 leadership habits to cultivate in 2021

“So, for the first Leader’s Digest blog in 2021, I’m going to give you some handy leadership habits to cultivate. These leadership habits go a long way towards making you a better leader – and who’s not for that? Not only is becoming the leader you aspire to be a noble pursuit and one that you can be pretty proud of, but your team and boss will undoubtedly thank you too.”

From Lolly Daskal: How To Become A More Empathetic Leader In Difficult Times

“Here are some of the top traits of empathetic leaders. As you read through, ask yourself how many you can claim and where you could be doing more.”

From Steve Keating: One Good Thing

“I’d like to ask you to do yourself a favor. It’s not a big ask, it’s really very simple. In many ways it’s a small thing but the results could be anything but small. In fact this little thing could have a huge positive impact on your life.”

From Todd Ordal: The CEO’s Critical Skill Set

“First off, let’s define a successful CEO. Here’s my take: “’who can lead others to profitably address a market in a sustaining fashion.’ Please note that my definition doesn’t include gaining notoriety, extracting exorbitant rewards and being loved by all. If those are more important to you, you’ll need a different list.”

From Art Petty: Here’s Where You Should Slow Down to Move Faster

“It’s easy to swallow the dogma that has emerged around the ‘Cult of Speed’ in our management thinking and teaching. Yet, the pursuit of speed in poorly designed systems exposes weaknesses and often precipitates project, strategy, and even organizational failure. Said simply, raw speed kills. Sometimes you have to tap the brakes and slow down to ultimately move faster.”

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. 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. And, at my blog for part-time business book authors, I share tools and insights to help you write and publish a book you’ll be proud of.

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