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 Ed Batista, Ken Downer, Steve Keating, Art Petty, and Todd Ordal.

From Ed Batista: The Tyranny of Feelings

“Emotions matter, in countless ways. They alert us to potential opportunities and threats. They’re essential inputs into the process of logical reasoning. They allow us to rapidly process vast amounts of data from multiple sources in parallel, without having to rely on the vastly slower process of conscious deliberation. [1] And they enrich the human experience immeasurably: What would it be like to live without joy–or without grief?:”

From Ken Downer: Leaders and Con Men: Should We Follow Their Example?

“They work in the shadows and employ every trick in the book to get people to do what they want.  Usually it’s ‘hand over the money.’  As leaders, we’re trying to get people to do things, too.  So is there really much difference between leaders and con men?  Is there anything we can learn from these evil-doers that we can put to use for the good?”

From Steve Keating: How Free is Free Speech?

“When a Social Media platform decides to boot someone off it’s service we hear about the obvious violation of that person’s First Amendment rights. It’s obvious because the First Amendment clearly states that anyone can say anything at anytime and in any way that they want. Except it doesn’t actually say that.”

From Art Petty: Help Aspiring Managers Explore and Experiment Before Leaping into the Role

“Instead of perpetuating the ‘hope’ approach to identifying and developing new managers, try my favorite question, ‘Why manage?’ three times, backed by some exploration and experimentation.”

From Todd Ordal: CEO Coaching: Some Things Just Take Time!

“I’m a fan of fast. I talk fast, eat fast and drive fast (says my wife). I like to complete undesirable projects quickly. Heck, we all have a limited amount of time on earth, and I’d rather ski and fly-fish than mow the lawn or paint a wall. I figure I’ve added at least a year of fun activity to my life because I do some things fast. (I’ve also paid a few speeding tickets and now have professionals do my lawncare, because my speed over quality strategy wasn’t so sound. And my wife has gotten me to slow down in the car — at least when she’s with me!)”

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. On 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.

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