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 Jesse Lyn Stoner, Kate Nasser, Marcella Bremer, Mary Jo Asmus, and Ed Batista.

From Jesse Lyn Stoner: Successful Leaders Listen

“Successful leaders listen because they know that they don’t know everything they need to know.”

From Kate Nasser: How Leaders Preserve Bias & How to Stop

“Leaders preserve bias and that blocks their efforts to be inclusive of all the talents hired. How do they do this? How can they stop?”

From Marcella Bremer: What story do you tell yourself? About learned optimism and success

“Why do some people walk so much easier through life than others? And why do others attract bad luck, time and again? Maybe some people are born under a lucky star. Is the universe unfair? Is life a random sequence of events? Or is there some correlation between cause and effect? What if good fortune is the result of an optimistic outlook on life? And what has that to do with positive leadership, culture, and change?”

From Mary Jo Asmus: Liberating delegation

“Too many leaders interfere in the work that their employees are being paid to do.”

From Ed Batista: Pasta Shapes (Stupid Fights and How to Stop Them)

“This dynamic is hardly unique to management teams, and I see it in almost every ongoing relationship, including my own marriage. My wife and I even have shorthand for it: Pasta Shapes. Years ago we found ourselves in the middle of a serious argument about what type of pasta we were going to cook that night. It was getting heated when we suddenly caught ourselves and asked, ‘What the hell is going on here? Why are we fighting about pasta shapes, for crying out loud?’”

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 why organizations fail, where great leaders earn their stripes, how self-reflection can make you a better leader, and how to fail successfully.

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.