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, Anne Perschel, Kate Nasser, Karin Hurt, and Mary Jo Asmus.

From Art Petty: Great Leaders Care

“While a leader’s competence is viewed as the most important attribute to engender trust, the fact that he or she genuinely cares about team members is a critical number two.”

From Anne Perschel: Lead with a Smile & See What Happens

“I know what it’s like to have a habit of mind that zeros in on what’s wrong. I used to walk into my house with eyes that immediately found the spot on the floor, the smudge on the table. I couldn’t feel ‘at home’ until I cleaned the spot, wiped the smudge. But one smudge leads to another, and another… I wasn’t happy or smiling much at home. It took months of intentional practice to change that habit of mind.”

From Kate Nasser: Engagement Currency: Do You Really Know Why Your Employees Work?

“Great leaders and managers know that to engage employees for maximum success they must get to know them. They find out why their employees work! They don’t assume the answer is money. They learn what makes the employees tick and turn that into relationship engagement currency.”

From Karin Hurt: How To Move a Team From Forming to High Performing in < 48 Hours

“Our MBA Orientation committee debated whether was this too much pressure. The second week on campus, teams of first year MBA students would have 48 hours to research and make recommendations on a real business challenge for a large, high-profile company and package and communicate their recommendation to a high-profile audience.”

From Mary Jo Asmus: Meeting them where they are

“Visualize someone at work who gets under your skin. Do you remember all of the (often small) things they’ve done that bother you? Your tendency may be to carry someone’s habits (the ones that you don’t like) and forget that they are capable of something more”

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 five strategy questions every leader should make time for, why old media can still beat new media, the Economist Technology Quarterly, the three things holding women back at work, and rethinking work.

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.