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 Ken Downer, Mary Jo Asmus, Ed Batista, Steve Keating, and Kevin Eikenberry,

From Ken Downer: The Leader Apprentice: 5 Ways to Master the Learning Mindset

“Like any trade, leadership is also action-based. We learn in the doing. With repeated application over time and under the guidance of a skilled craftsman, we too can become better at our trade.”

From Mary Jo Asmus: Examine the beliefs that no longer serve you

“Because of who you are and how you’ve lived in the world, you carry beliefs with you that may or may not serve you in your leadership (and your life). It’s good to be aware of those and realize when they need to be held tightly or set free.”

From Ed Batista: Karl Weick on Renewal

“In my work as an executive coach to senior leaders, I typically see my clients every few weeks over a period of years as they navigate a series of large-scale, long-term challenges. This inevitably entails accompanying them through periods of difficulty when their efforts have ‘stalled, turned sour, or become meaningless,’ to use a vivid phrase from Karl Weick’s How Projects Lose Meaning: The Dynamics of Renewal, a compelling essay in Renewing Research Practice. This 2004 volume is primarily aimed at helping academics overcome obstacles in their field, but Weick’s chapter has relevance for professionals in any discipline:”

From Steve Keating: You’re Not Always Right

“I love confidence in a leader so long as that confidence is tempered with an understanding that being right often and being right always are not the same thing. I’m guessing a little bit here because I’ve never been right so often that I’ve become overconfident in my judgment. But I’ve seen several instances where a leader has been right so often that they apparently forget what it was like to be wrong.”

From Kevin Eikenberry: Monitoring Success Without Micromanaging

“Micromanaging. Virtually no leader claims to do it, and those who do, say they are actively trying to stop doing it. Micromanaging is like a bad flu – no one wants it, no one tries to spread it, but we have all been infected with it. Unlike most flu viruses, micromanagement can last a long time with serious side effects.”

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. 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.

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.

The 347 tips in my ebook can help you Become a Better Boss One Tip at a Time.