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 Linda Fisher Thornton, Ann Bares, Kate Nasser, Steve Keating, and Suzi McAlpine.

From Linda Fisher Thornton: Setting Stretch Goals? Build in Ethics

“Employers who are using stretch goals to motivate employees to higher levels of performance need to take note of the ethical risk. If the push for higher performance doesn’t come with an emphasis on ethical behavior, it may be encouraging cheating.”

From Ann Bares: Leadership Commitment to Performance Management: Priceless

“Performance management has evolved enormously over the years I’ve been involved with these programs. When I think about the situations where I saw performance management program have a real and tangible impact on the organization’s success, however, there is one common factor. What they all had in common was an extraordinary level of leadership commitment. One particular case comes to mind.”

From Kate Nasser: People Skills Philosophy: The Mindset of Success

“Success in business comes through your people skills philosophy and your interaction with others. People skills guide that interaction. They are the tools you use to build trust, adapt to change, resolve conflict, and even rebuild trust. Yet your mindset — your philosophy — starts and shapes it all.”

From Steve Keating: Engaged Leadership

“I suppose asking once every couple of years is better than not asking at all but not by much. What I really hope is that no company that conducts a culture survey is surprised by the responses.”

From Suzi McAlpine: Why you should pay attention to this thing called The Great Resignation

“Like most things, leadership has its lingo and its latest buzzwords. Authentic. Disruption. The new normal.The “new black”, if you will, is The Great Resignation. It’s got the business world in a flurry and as a leader, it is a trend you should probably pay attention to, even if you aren’t digging this latest buzzword.”

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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