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, David Dye, Kevin Eikenberry, Julie Winkle Giulioni, and Rebecca Elvy.

From Lolly Daskal: How to Be an Empathetic Leader

“A few weeks ago, I was coaching a top leader across the pond, talking to him about the importance of empathy. When I told him that the best leaders are empathetic leaders, he challenged me on the spot. When it came to his own leadership, he said, he didn’t want to come across as weak.”

From Karin Hurt and David Dye: Massive Failures? What Great Leaders Do Next

“What do you do when you’ve screwed up and everyone knows it? Your failures weren’t just mistakes in judgment…you let yourself down. You didn’t keep your commitment. You hurt people you are supposed to help. Your team looks at you with disappointment.”

From Kevin Eikenberry: The Band of Excellence – and Why it Matters

“While the job expectations set the minimum performance level for the successful completion of a job or task, they only describe the floor of success. The Band of Excellence is a clear description of the expectation of the highest levels of performance for a specific job or task.”

From Julie Winkle Giulioni: How to Build Business Acumen on a Budget

“The complexity, connectivity and pace of business today demand that employees and leaders understand their work like never before.”

From Rebecca Elvy: Beyond Self-Interest: What is Leadership Really?

“But I was also fascinated with the idea of seeking what I cheekily call a ‘Unified Theory of Leadership’. The idea of distilling this illusive thing called leadership down to a truly useful and meaningful set of rules or identifying characteristics that would enable people to clearly ‘know it when they see it’. To be able to put their finger on what it is that makes one act leadership… and another one (by the same person or organisation) clearly not leadership. Today, I’m cautiously optimistic that I’ve found it.”

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.

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