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 Alli Polin, LaRae Quy, Scott Eblin, Susan Mazza, and Art Petty.

From Alli Polin: How to Get Comfortable with Uncomfortable Conversations

“What breathes dread into more managers and leaders than almost any other responsibility? Facilitating uncomfortable conversations.”

From LaRae Quy: The Essential Skill You Need To Be Successful

“Empathy is not sympathy, nor is it feeling sorry for others. Instead, it is understanding what others are feeling or thinking. It’s often described as the ability to put yourself in another person’s shoes. It’s important to remember you’re experiencing how they feel in their shoes, not how you would feel in them!”

From Scott Eblin: Leaders, Share Yourselves

“One of the bright spots for me of this life-changing era we’re all living through is the stories of human connection that I hear from the executives I speak with every week. Again and again, they share moments or emails that demonstrate how tough times can bring out the best in leaders and their teams. I’m struck by how the moments that matter most are the ones in which leaders share themselves as human beings and encourage their team members to do the same.”

From Susan Mazza: Creating and Celebrating a Success Cycle

“The Success Cycle offered below is a simple, intentional process that can help you get on the path and stay on the path to success. Even your best laid plans are bound to be disrupted by the unexpected. Some disruptions may throw you off track for a day like an illness or an unexpected request from your boss. While others disrupt your entire life in uncontrollable and unpredictable ways like the 2020 pandemic.”

From Art Petty: Sometimes Leading Means Asking for Help

“A client I will call Rob told me a fascinating story about how his firm safely navigated the last big financial crisis. Unlike a lot of these stories, Rob was open about the reality that he almost failed. He credits his daughter and his employees for pulling him back from the brink.”

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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