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 Kate Nasser, Susan Mazza, Sharlyn Lauby, Chris Edmonds, and Mary Jo Asmus.

From Kate Nasser: Business Creativity: Recreate the Image to Include Everyone

“Are all your employees contributing the creativity inside of them? Business creativity is not just for marketing pros and advertising departments. It is not the sole territory of new product development teams. All employees have creativity inside of them.”

From Susan Mazza: The Alternative to Fixing Poor Performance

“One approach to fixing people or their behaviors is the ‘carrot and the stick.’ While this may yield short term results, they aren’t sustainable. Why? Because this approach keeps you on the hook for their compliance, rather than empowering them to take ownership over their own behavior and results.”

From Sharlyn Lauby: Work Journals Help Employees Accomplish Their Goals

“Journaling is the notion of keeping a written record of thoughts and experiences. For some of us, our first journaling experience might have been keeping a diary when we were younger. I know people who have kept journals during trips or sabbaticals. I kept a journal after my car accident that was focused on my recovery.”

From Chris Edmonds: Through Thick and Thin

“True friends stick with us even when times are tough – ‘through thick and thin,’ is the mantra. True leaders do the same. They remain in service to their team members even when faced with undesirable circumstances.”

From Mary Jo Asmus: When your ‘bias for action’ has its limits

“The leaders who move to the top of their organizations are often those who are fast paced, focused on taking action, and results-oriented. Yet those very qualities can derail leaders who don’t pay attention to the needs of the people they lead. At some point if they continue on their action-focused trajectory, these leaders who have a bias for action might find that when they turn around nobody is following them.”

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 translating strategy into results, some ideas about the restaurant of the future, why technology alone won’t change the world, why men are 86% more likely to be funded than women, and how new data-collection technology might change office culture.

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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