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 Steve Keating, Ed Batista, LaRae Quy, Art Petty, and Suzi McAlpine.

From Steve Keating: Profits Before People?

“I‘ve had a few interesting discussions of late regarding the subject of generating profits at the expense of an organization’s people.”

From Ed Batista: Authority and Control in Organizational Life

“Most of my clients are CEOs of growing companies, and most of the rest are executives in similar organizations, and a recurring theme in my practice is a conflict between a leader and one of their employees. The potential causes of such conflicts are endless, ranging from differences in communication and working styles [2] to disagreements over decision rights [3], but in many cases there’s also a clash between one person’s relationship with authority and the other’s need for control. Each person’s perspective is contingent on their role: The leader who’s frustrated by the employee’s resistance may characterize them as having ‘authority issues,’ while the employee who’s frustrated by the leader’s micro-management may characterize them as having ‘control issues.’ But such shorthand obscures more than it explains. What do these characterizations really mean?”

From LaRae Quy: How To Use Hope To Overcome Stress and Anxiety

“It suddenly came to me that there is a perfect four-letter word for this moment in time—hope.”

From Art Petty: Harnessing the Power of Purpose in Your Work

“Yet, as magical and magnificent as the sight of a human-made helicopter flying on Mars, I choke up watching the reactions of the engineers and scientists as their long, hard work comes to life.”

From Suzi McAlpine: Here’s why I’ve changed my mind about values

“I heard a lot of chatter about the power of defining your values and leading by them. If I’m honest, I wondered if it was just that. Chatter. But then I decided to go through the exercise of defining my own values. After all, it wouldn’t do for a leadership coach not to. And I certainly couldn’t criticise a concept if I didn’t get my hands dirty with all this values lark first.”

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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