Reflections on "Best Blog" Lists
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Kevin Eikenberry asks, "What is the best leadership blog of 2010?" It's a good question and Kevin has set up a process to figure out an answer.
Readers of Kevin's blog shared their ideas about blogs that "speak entirely or to a large extent about leadership." Eleven of those blogs (including this one) were picked at "best" and are listed on Kevin's site. You can review them and follow a link to vote and select your favorite.
There is no one best way to come up with a judgment about "best" blogs. You have to narrow the field by selecting what kind of blog you're considering. Where does leadership begin and end?
Then you have to have a process. Kevin's is a rigorous one. That makes popularity important. Other lists are hand-picked. Two of the best are Jurgen Apello's "Top 150 Management & Leadership Blogs" and Mike Myatt's "Top 30 Leadership Blogs 2010."
No matter who does the list or what process they use, there will be some great blogs that aren't on it. Bloggers had to agree to be on Kevin's list, so it's entirely possible that the great blogger you think is missing simply chose not to participate.
Here are two important things to think about when you review Kevin's list or any other list of "great" or "best" blogs.
We're all different. I write what I hope are practical posts for "bosses at every level." Mike Myatt writes primarily for CEOs, though the rest of us can learn a lot from his blog. Dan McCarthy specializes in leadership development.
The point is that you can love one of our blogs and not find the others useful at all. It's a matter of personal preference and needs.
The list is not the territory, but it's a good starting point. Use the list to check out blogs that you're not familiar with to see if they're worth following for you. Check other lists to find other blogs. Mine the blogrolls that are part of most blogs. Mine is to your left.
Have fun with it all. Vote. Follow the results. Cheer for your favorites.
Boss's Bottom Line
Use blogrolls and lists of "best" blogs to identify the blogs that are most
helpful and inspiring for you. Read them regularly.
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.
Categories: Leadership Reading, blogs
Tags: Blogs Leadership Reading
Hi Wally - many congratulations on reaching this list. I am a huge fan of your blog as you know and an avid reader.
My only comment would be I was somewhat surprised to see a lack of women on the list ( only one!) when there are so many excellent female writers in the blogsphere. The percentage pretty much reflects the percentage of women on boards. I have to say I expected a greater commitment to diversity on social media. It would have been great to see this type of platform recognising women's skills in this arena. I don't believe it can be for lack of potential candidates.
Why do you think this is?
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Thanks for raising the issue with Kevin's list, Dorothy. Let me try to break this into pieces to highlight important issues.
Definition of what is being listed is a factor. Kevin is attempting to list blogs that are all or mostly about leadership. The majority of women bloggers whom I read wouldn't fall into that category. Your blog, as least for me, is about recruiting and career issues with a strong component on business issues from a woman's perspective. Ann Bares writes one of the best business blogs there is, but it's about compensation.
Of course, "leadership" has a number of definitions and whether a blog is "all or mostly" about leadership is a subjective judgment for the most part. For example, I think of Mary Jo Asmus' blog as a leadership blog, but others may see it as about "coaching."
To test this I took a look at the list of "150 Best Leadership Blogs." Out of the 150, 20 are by "various," leaving us with 130. Of that 130, only 19 are by women, about the same percentage as on Kevin's list. Only 9 of those are published frequently enough to become a favorite.
If we widen the scope of the list to include HR or business in general, there would be a higher percentage of frequent, quality women bloggers. To test that I went to my own reader. I review a number of blogs at least once a week, searching for "best posts" for my weekly lists. There are 69 active, single-person blogs in my list. Nineteen of them (27.5 percent) are by women.
The selection process is also a factor. In this case the process begins with "nominations" from Kevin's readers. That probably means that the blogs nominated are somewhat similar to Kevin's in terms of content.
The other process issue is that the blogs listed have all agreed to promote the list (by adding a graphic to their site) and in other ways. I'm sure there are quality blogs who did not choose to do that.
For me there are two bottom line conclusions at this point. Lists like this will always be based on subjective criteria and imperfect processes. That said, there are quality business blogs, written by women that don't seem to be showing up on many of the "best" lists. That leaves us with the question of what to do so that the wisdom of those blogs is more widely shared and acknowledged.
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Thanks Wally for taking the time for such a detailed reply and doing some further research. I had already observed that the percentage split was about the same on all the lists. On a list of 11 , the split was just more glaring I think.
I also agree that you are very broad in your own selections of recommended reading and have been honoured by your mentions on numerous occasions as have other women.
My point was also general rather than specific and to simply ask the question, as you do, what can be done to raise the visibility and inclusion of the surely excellent women who must be writing in this field?
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Side note/observation: Goldman Sachs Named 110 Partners today, "Only 16 out of the 110 new partners - or roughly 15% - are women"
http://bit.ly/9ICj6w (FINS)
And yes, thanks, Wally, for all you've done with this
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Thank you Dorothy and Anna for your comments. I don't think there's a single answer to this, and we may need to ask a few more questions as well.
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Hello,
I think Dorothy makes a great point; "I expected a greater commitment to diversity on social media."
The recent 'Leadership and Influence Summit', organized by @DanielDecker, represented only four female leaders/speakers (out of 36, I think).
Why is this? Lack of 'sponsorship'? Do women suck at personal branding? I'm not even close to coming up with an answer.
What do you think?
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I don't know the answer to that, Anna. I've responded to Dorothy on the issue of the list of best blogs, but you're opening up the issue a bit wider. My concern is that we need all the brains we can get in the game if we're going to succeed as business people or simply as people. Technology gives us opportunities to involve people who might have been shut out before. Now the challenge is to make use of the opportunities. I think it's a journey and we're only at the very beginning. I know that's where I am.
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I think as long as you accept them as they are they good. They don't actually select some objectively "best" but can give you some good ideas for finding new blogs worth reading.
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I absolutely agree, John. Thanks.
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The one thing that is glaringly missing from all of these 'best of' lists are any established names. There's no HBR. No Schumpeter from the Economist. No BusinessWeek. There are no blogs that accept multiple authors either, not to mention an enormous US bias.
All in all a rather one dimensional list that seems to reflect what they know rather than what might be best for readers.
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I can't speak for Kevin's list, but I know that I specifically exclude the likes of Business Week and HBR bloggers from my regular Wednesday selection of posts because they already get good coverage and it's my purpose to share posts that might be less likely to be seen. Thanks for sharing your observations, all of which I happen to agree with.
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