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 Art Petty, Karin Hurt, Chris Edmonds, Lolly Daskal, and Mary Jo Asmus.

From Art Petty: We All Make the Choice to Transact or Transform

“As leaders, managers, and contributors, we make the choice every day to transact or transform in our encounters with colleagues and customers.”

From Karin Hurt: 6 Reasons Your Training Program Isn’t Working

“Most of the time, when a ‘We need training, right now!’ call comes in, it’s not about the training. Sure, training can help, but not in a vacuum. Often, there are bigger issues at play.”

From Chris Edmonds: Leading a purposeful, positive, productive culture

“Culture is a business issue. It drives everything that happens in your organizations, for better or worse. Why don’t leaders make culture a priority? They don’t know how. They’ve never been asked to manage culture. Deloitte’s study found that only 28 percent of respondents believe they understand their current culture well. Only 19 percent believe they have the ‘right’ culture!”

From Lolly Daskal: The Most Overlooked Habits of Great Leaders

“But there is more to great leadership than external success. From what I’ve seen, the secret lies not with particular actions or methodologies, but with internal habits that are often completely overlooked.”

From Mary Jo Asmus: Four intangible leadership qualities that you can acquire

“When you observe leaders that you admire, you might notice that they have certain qualities that are difficult to describe but are appealing and effective. They might cause you to think ‘There’s just something wonderful about that leader that I can’t describe’. Some would call this charisma. You might be surprised to discover that you too can develop these charismatic qualities.”

That’s it for this week’s selections from independent business blogs. If you liked this piece you may enjoy my regular post on “Leadership Reading to Start Your Week” points you to choice articles from the business schools, the business press and major consulting firms about strategy, innovation, women and the workplace, and work now and in the future. Highlights from the last issue include leadership perils for subject matter experts, what retail “Goliaths” must learn from the “Davids,” how companies are benefiting from “lite” artificial intelligence, when gender inequality controls whole organisations, and are you ready for robot colleagues?

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.

If you’re a boss, you should check out my Working Supervisor’s Support Kit.