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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.

This week, I'm pointing you to posts on definitions of leadership, a leader's daily reminder list, transforming your workplace, planning, and one of the most dangerous fallacies in business.

From the Practice of Leadership: John Kotter defines Leadership
"Leadership is about bringing about change and effective change requires vision, inspiration and effective communication. A vision that is so clear and compelling that people align to make it happen."

Wally's Comment: John Kotter was in the vanguard of researchers who went into the field and looked at what successful businesspeople actually did, instead of theorizing or relying on laboratory experiments. That's one reason why the Harvard Business Review has sold more reprints of his articles than any other author in the last twenty years. It's why his books sell well, too. In this short post, George Ambler highlights Kotter's description of what leaders do. It doesn't need much commentary.

From Building Better Leaders: The Leader’s Daily Reminder List
"The gravitational pull of New Year’s lists is almost too powerful to overlook.  You can hardly take a stroll through the blogosphere right now without tripping over these lofty, noble goals intended to guide behavior and ensure that we end up new people by the end of next year."

Wally's Comment: Whatever you think leadership is, in the end it comes down to things you do every day. Art Petty knows that and suggests some things you should consider every day.

From Brain Based Leadership: Transform Workplace Tone
"When respect is evident and differences welcomed, tone simply ensures that possibilities get more communicated than problems presented. Transformation hinges on rolling out different insights, from people whose common agenda connects to an outcome that benefits the wider community."

Wally's Comment: Ellen Weber contrasts the way a productive group "feels" with groups dominated by individual self-interest.

From Blog for Profit: Why Planning Is Important, Your Plan is Not
"As small business owners, we often link a business plan to a funding request. We need money so we need a plan. Our funders demand it. Unfortunately, entrepreneurs who think like this haven’t made a crucial distinction. Planning serves a more critical function than raising money. You (and, therefore, your business) benefit more from planning than anyone. In fact, the plan itself isn’t really that important."

Wally's Comment: This is a good, point-by-point explication of a truth that Dwight Eisenhower phrased succinctly: "Plans are nothing. Planning is everything."

From Pete Michaud: Sunk Cost Fallacy
"Sunk Costs are costs which have already been incurred and cannot be recovered. The Sunk Cost Fallacy is a mistake in reasoning in which you consider the sunk costs of an activity (instead of the future costs) when you decide whether you should continue the activity or not."

Wally's Comment: The confusion of sunk costs and investments is the cause of much great pain in business. Pete Michaud lays out the basics of what a sunk cost is and how it should affect your decision making. It's the best explanation of the concept that I've seen on the web. There's also an excellent discussion that contrasts sunk costs with opportunity costs in Charles Koch's book, The Science of Success.

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.