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, Terry “Starbucker” St. Marie, Kevin Eikenberry, Mary Jo Asmus, and Ed Batista.

From Suzi McAlpine: The Game You Should Take Up This Holiday Season

“If my 9-year-old can get on the chess bandwagon, it’s about time I did too. ‘Suzi’, I said to myself sternly, ‘stop being daunted by a little wooden board with horses and castles on it.’ So my 16-year-old son has shouldered the unenviable task of teaching me – and although I’m still befuddled by the different pieces and their respective moves, I’m already positioning my pawns and rocking my rooks with the best of them. ‘Well, good for you. But why should I play chess and what’s it got to do with leadership?’ you might be wondering. Quite a lot as it turns out.”

From Terry “Starbucker” St. Marie: How To Build (and Sustain) A Culture Of Accountability

“My More Human Leadership philosophy and practice is guided by 8 core principles, and if they are followed and practiced well, a leader can achieve what I call the ‘success trifecta’ – a great company, happy employees, and a fulfilled leader.”

From Kevin Eikenberry: A Leadership Shopping List

“And when I was young, I also remember hearing how it was better to give than to receive. It sounded good. But, seriously, what is better than an electric football game?”

From Mary Jo Asmus: Separating behavior from the person

“Many of us are quick to judge others based on an instance of unseemly behavior. As a leader, falling into the trap of quickly judging someone based on a single bad behavior isn’t the best way to assure you have an organization of people brimming with potential. It’s all too easy to paint a broad brush and declare individuals who behave badly as bad people.”

From Ed Batista: How to Scale: Do Less, Lead More

“Most of my coaching clients are CEOs of growing companies, and a consistent theme in my practice is the importance—and the difficulty—of transitioning from a hands-on leader who personally gets things done to someone who leads in a different way in order to be more effective as the organization scales.”

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. One 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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