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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.

Every week I select five excellent posts from this week's independent business blogs. This week, I'm pointing you to posts on "Why?", abandoning motivation, soft skills, strategy and tactics, showing and doing, and one man's response to his employer blocking access to his blog.

If you were counting, you noticed that this week there are six posts. That's because one didn't really fit my usual criteria, but was just too good to pass up.

From All Things Workplace: Why "Why?" Matters
"The human condition requires context for what's being asked or done. Idea people fall in love with their ideas. Action people fall in love with do-ing. But everyone around them needs to know why the ideas and actions are important. We talk about "engagement," then fail to provide the purpose and context that people need to become engaged."

Wally's Comment: As usual with a great Steve Roesler post, the post is great and so are the comments.

From Incentive Intelligence: I'm On A Mission to Ban Motivation Programs
"I'm done with motivation.  That's right - I've given up on trying to help companies motivate their employees, channel partners or consumers.  I'm throwing in the towel.  Why you ask (I hope you ask)?"

Wally's Comment: Paul Hebert is one of those bloggers who likes telling the emperor that he is, in fact, buck naked. In this post he offers a sensible alternative to the management mythology that you can actually motivate someone else.

From Intentional Leadership: The Secret Responsibilities of a Leader
"There are some responsibilities a leader must embrace in order to be the best at their craft that we don’t normally talk about, at least in this way. They may be discussed behind closed doors with a confidante or coach, but they are not usually on a list of goals or part of performance review discussions. It is rare that they would be part of a conversation with a leader’s boss. They are, after all, considered “soft”. They are also essential."

Wally's Comment: Soft skills have hard value. Guess what, if we selected and prepared new bosses for the human side of their job we might not be in trouble.

From Eric D. Brown: Minding the gap between Strategy and Tactics
"I’ve seen many strategic plans for organizations. A few of these plans have sections for Technology Strategy while some don’t mention technology at all.   While these strategic plans are nice and thick, have lots of words and graphs and are usually well designed, they are missing something very important: a discussion of, and a plan for, implementation of the strategy."

Wally's Comment: Eric offers you three practical questions to ask about your strategy.

While you're thinking about strategy, pick up Erika Andersen's excellent book, Being Strategic.

From the NSC Blog: Showing and Doing Speaks Louder Than Telling
"Most of us are visual: We often learn best by seeing. A leader’s personal behavior speaks volumes; most organizations, for better or worse, are the shadow of their leaders."

Wally's Comment: You're heard the phrase "leadership by example?" Well, here's an example of leadership by example. Great read.

From Great Leadership: A No Bulls*#% Manager's Guide to Internet Use at Work
"I've heard some of the most narrow-minded, asinine, and time wasting debates on this topic. I'm really sick of it. We've spent more time on the issues of employee access and how to prevent abuse that our employees could ever waste."

Wally's Comment: Yep, you're right, this is the bonus post. Let's set the stage. Dan McCarthy's Great Leadership blog is one of the best blogs there is. It's well written. It's full of solid information and wise counsel. In short, it's exactly the sort of stuff you want your leaders to read.

But when Dan tried to reach his blog through the company intranet he found that he was blocked, just like those porn sites. A lesser human being might have cried or sat in the ashes of despair and shaken his fist at the sky, but not our hero.

Dan does what my mother would have advised him to do. He answers the question, "What good can we make of this?" with a stellar, information-rich post on internet use policies. It's not the usual leadership fare, but it's definitely a must-read.

Wally's Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training. Click here to check it out.