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, Kate Nasser, Todd Ordal, Lolly Daskal, and Steve Keating

From Suzi McAlpine: Falling prey to groupthink? How to encourage healthy debate in your team

“Have you ever been part of a team where people are too afraid to speak up and challenge an approach that’s being taken? Maybe everyone’s gung ho on a way forward with something, and you’re the only one who thinks it’s a bad idea – but there’s no way in hell you’re going to pipe up. Or maybe it’s the bosses’ new, bright, shiny ‘thing’ – and challenging that is a career-limiting move. Maybe it’s more subtle. Perhaps the team all get along so well, and there’s so much collegiality, that you’ve all become a bit conflict-avoidant. The harmony of the team is taking precedence over the necessary hearty debate that leads to good outcomes. You might think it’s no big deal. But the road to bad decisions is littered with a lack of open, frank dialogue on things that matter.”

From Kate Nasser: Team Harmony: Leaders, Are You Needlessly Sacrificing Great Results?

“When teams are united in their goal and are willing to adapt to reach it, you can have both team harmony and great results. Yet leaders who are very focused on team harmony and morale, sometimes sacrifice great results to keep morale and harmony alive. This is unnecessary and risky.”

From Todd Ordal: When Do You Practice?

“Back when I was an executive, I ‘winged it’ too often. I was ‘too busy’ to practice much. Dumb! Even something as simple as your weekly senior staff meeting deserves practice. For example, what issues can you foresee as generating resistance? From whom? How will you handle this? Who will support it? How long will you allocate for the conversation? You get the picture.”

From Lolly Daskal: 6 Overlooked Traits That Separate Great Leaders From The Rest

“If you ask people what separates great leaders from the rest, most will tell you it’s intelligence, confidence, charisma, strength, or something similar. But over my many years of coaching leaders around the world, I’ve come to realize that what separates great leaders from good leaders comes down to certain skills. Here are six of the most important:”

From Steve Keating: The Time to Lead

“When leading people there are few predictable outcomes. People will always surprise you. We can’t know for certain how people will react in various circumstances until we see them react. Just because they acted in a particular way does not guarantee they will act the same way when they are in similar circumstances.”

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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