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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 truths about leadership, paying attention to what works, creating a great working environment, storytelling as a management technique, and trust. As a bonus, there's a pointer to a post on questionable assumptions about work. 

From Leadership Now: Ten Truths about Leadership
"In the last 30 years James Kouzes and Barry Posner, authors of the highly regarded leadership classic The Leadership Challenge, have studied leaders all over the world. They understand leadership. The question they get time and time again is “What’s new in leadership?” They answer that while the context of leadership as changed dramatically, “the content of leadership has not changed much at all. The fundamental behaviors, actions, and practices of leaders have remained essentially the same since we first began researching and writing about leadership over three decades ago. Much has changed, but there’s a whole lot more that’s stayed the same.” That is probably the fundamental truth of leadership development. With that understanding, we can develop leaders in all contexts and weed out fact from fiction."

Wally's Comment: Michael McKinney does great book reviews. In this post, the review is of The Truth about Leadership by James Kouzes and Barry Posner. The special value of this review is the short list of the ten truths from the book.

From Bob Sutton: Why Bosses Ought to Be More Interested in What is True Than What is New
"One of my favorite CEO's of all time is A.G. Lafley, who recently stepped down after running Procter & Gamble for a decade. There are many things I admire about A.G. His modesty and ability to listen — and I mean really listen, not just pretend — impressed me when I first met him in 2000, and when I spoke with again last year I found him unchanged, even after all the praise he has received. "

Wally's Comment: Bob Sutton is "Mr. Evidence Based Management" as far as I'm concerned and his blog is one place that I go for solid, well-supported advice in understandable form. Bob's posts are usually longer than most bloggers but it's worth reading every syllable and following every link. Among other things, this post will describe the connection between teenagers discovering sex and Jim Collins book, Good to Great . Interested?

From the Curious Cat: Build an Environment Where Intrinsic Motivation Flourishes
"50 years after Douglas McGregor’s classic, The Human Side of Enterprise, too many managers still have not learned that using extrinsic motivation is not an effective way to manage complex human systems (organizations). The issue is important to me because there is a huge amount of poor management based on this thinking (focused on how people need to be fixed/motivated) instead of fixing what management really needs to fix."

Wally's Comment: In this post, John Hunter reminds us that if you frame workplace issues as those of "motivation," you set yourself up for both frustration and failure. But if you look at the working environment as a natural system and carefully analyze performance issues from that perspective you solve more problems, improve morale, and get that elusive motivation-thing, to boot.

From QAspire: Engagement, Leadership and Power of Storytelling
"We loved it when our grandparents wrapped important life lessons in form of stories. Vivid situations weaved in words and narrated with great zeal. The stories I heard in my childhood, and the messages therein, are still afresh in my memory. My daughter almost gets hooked when a story is narrated. We grow up on stories, so do our belief system and our world view. For leaders, ability to communicate using stories, choosing stories in line with listener’s current context and structuring them for maximum impact are very crucial skills."

Wally's Comment: Human beings love stories. They're the way we make sense of complex issues and pass experience on to others. That's why stories have a place at work.

From Winning Workplaces: New Deloitte Survey Highlights Connection Between Employee Trust and Retention
"Maybe the results of Deloitte's latest Ethics & Workplace Survey will change some minds regarding the ROI of building trust in the workplace.  Surveying more than 700 employed Americans in April, Deloitte found that close to half have lost trust in their employer since the start of the recession; this has propelled more than a third of respondents to look for a new job as the economy picks up."

Wally's Comment: It shouldn't come as a surprise, but employee trust and retention go hand-in-hand.

And here's a bonus. Michael Wade is one of my favorite bloggers. I highly recommend that you add his Execupundit blog to your regular reads. This week he had an "it's funny because it's true post" titled: "Questionable Assumptions About Work ." Read it for the chuckles and the gasps of recognition.

That's it for this week's selections from the independent business blogs. If you liked this piece you may enjoy my regular post on "Leadership Reading to Start Your Week" which features five choice articles from the business schools, the business press and major consulting firms. The last issue had pointers to articles about succeeding in a commodity industry, a looming tech problem, picking the right technology, measuring human capital, and happiness .

And be sure to check out Weekly Leader where I'll try to get you thinking about The Question of the Week.