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 Doug Thorpe, Kevin Eikenberry, Ed Batista, Mary Jo Asmus, and Karin Hurt.

From Doug Thorpe: Change by Choice or by Chance

“As I look back on my career, the major milestones are combinations of things done by choice and some by chance.”

From Kevin Eikenberry: Why the Best Leaders Can Be Boring

“If I asked you to make a list of adjectives to describe great leaders, you would come up with a list with little trouble. But I highly doubt you would put ‘boring’ on that list. In fact, you might have words on your list that are antonyms (or nearly so) to the word boring. Not only that, if you are like me, you don’t really want to be thought of as boring either. Yet I still believe that we as leaders should in at least some ways strive to be boring. Here is what I mean.”

From Ed Batista: Agile Coaching and Group Dynamics

“I originally wrote this in 2012, a few years after discovering the work of Pierluigi Pugliese, who led me to the work of Jim and Michele McCarthy. It’s merely an introductory reference for anyone unfamiliar with the term ‘agile’ and its application to both software deveIopment and team coaching. Having written it, I then promptly filed it away and forgot about it until reminded today by a tweet from Christina Wodtke. Many thanks to all of them and the other coaches referenced below. Serendipity!”

From Mary Jo Asmus: Do less and be more of a leader

“Imagine that someone takes notice that you get things done and they see greater potential in you. They talk to you about becoming a people manager or having even greater people responsibilities if you are already a manager. You pat yourself on the back knowing that the promotion you’ll get is directly tied to your ability to get things done. So if you keep doing things as you always have, you’ll be a successful manager, right? Wrong. Managing people takes more than ‘doing’.”

From Karin Hurt: Teachable Moments: Learning to Win Well the Hard Way

“When I told ‘John’ what I did for a living, he chuckled. ‘Oh, I learned how to be a good leader the hard way.’ Don’t we all. It’s often our most klutsy moves that teach us how to Win Well.”

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 big deals like Bayer’s often fail to deliver high performance, 5 things everyone should know about machine learning, here’s what it takes for your company’s culture to survive an acquisition, and the decline and fall of retail as we know it.

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.