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, Alli Polin, Art Petty, Suzi McAlpine, and Kevin Eikenberry.

From Ken Downer: Visualization Techniques: 5 Simple Ways We Can Influence the Future

“Done well, visualization techniques are a great tool for simulating future experiences before they happen so we can influence the outcomes. Here’s one way they helped me just last week, and several ways they can help you.”

From Alli Polin: 7 Ways You’re Leading Like a Caricature. Grow Up.

“Think for a sec. Do you know a leader or two or ten who have some growing up to do? Who reminds you all too much of a movie? Maybe they are like one of these archetypal leaders from the latest high school satire.”

From Art Petty: Designing Constructive Feedback Discussions for Success

“No wonder managers struggle with feedback. This seemingly simple communication and performance development tool is surprisingly challenging to get right. In my experience teaching and helping many managers and executives with feedback, I’ve observed success when they think of and plan for these discussions as a function of four distinct processes: design, delivery, management, and reinforcement.”

From Suzi McAlpine: A little bit, done often: why the key to high performance is not what you think

“It was the commitment to do one small thing, and to do it often, which mattered. I knew I could commit to small steps. That was the magic of my success. Turns out, Stanford researchers also say this is the way to go if you want to master positive, long lasting change. Habits are what matter. The one small thing you do consistently every day is what delivers steady and long lasting positive change. This philosophy also applies to building a high performing, cohesive leadership team.”

From Kevin Eikenberry: People Aren’t One Dimensional

“Human beings are messy and amazing. We are multi-faceted, complex, ever-changing, and wear many hats in our lives. For years, people have created models and formulas to simplify and categorize people. And for all the value those efforts and models can yield, they fall short of being the magic pill that helps us communicate with, work with, and lead individuals. People aren’t one dimensional, and the best leaders focus on leading individuals, not leading people.”

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.

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