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 Lolly Daskal, Karin Hurt, Mary Jo Asmus, Scott Mabry, and Ken Downer

From Lolly Daskal: Why Compassion Is the Key To Being A Great Leader

“There will always be opinions and discussion about the traits that are important to strong leadership. But there’s one trait that every successful leader must have, and that’s compassion.”

From Karin Hurt: Critical Thinking: 5 Ways to Build Your Team’s Capacity to Think

“Critical thinking is not a gene. Yes, it comes more naturally to some, but it is teachable (much of the time). Here are a few ways to get started.”

From Mary Jo Asmus: Why you need to have a hobby

“For a leader who is often expected to have all of the answers, you also need to have curiosity and a desire to continue learning. Leadership can’t really be taught in a classroom but it can be learned as you experience your life.”

From Scott Mabry: Take A Walk

“This concept of walking in another person’s shoes is grounded in ancient wisdom. Most of us embrace the idea and even more, we expect it from others. Yet in practice, it seems more a platitude than a value.”

From Ken Downer: Unstoppable: 12 Ways to Find the Courage to Continue

“Teddy Roosevelt once reminded us that ‘Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty.’ But in our struggles to achieve, that difficulty can be enough to make us want to quit.”

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.

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