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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 servant leadership, the power of culture, learning from the world's most admired companies, the upside of troughs, and essential trust skills.

From Bret Simmons: Servant Leadership, Trust, And Team Performance
"I love the concept of servant leadership, but I’ve found it’s a tough sell when talking to practicing managers and MBA students. Many have the impression that this group-oriented approach to leadership that emphasizes being resourceful, sharing power and building a sense of shared purpose and teamwork is wishy-washy. Until recently, high quality empirical work to demonstrate the real value of servant leadership has been limited."

Wally's Comment: There are lots of people who react to the term "servant leadership" the way Bret describes "practicing managers and MBA students" do. If you're one of them, be sure to read the research description in this post with special attention to findings about both "transformational leadership" and "servant leadership." You may not change your opinion, but I bet you find some great food for thought.

From Stephen J. Gill: Hospital Culture Trumps Equipment and Techniques
"If you hire the top people in their professions and have state-of-the-art technology, will that ensure organizational success? A study reported in the March issue of Annals of Internal Medicine provides evidence that hospital culture has more influence on improving patient outcomes than resources such as reputation of physicians, electronic records systems, state-of-the-art equipment, or evidence-based protocols."

Wally's Comment: We know that culture is powerful. Even if you don't agree with Lou Gerstner that "culture isn't just one aspect of the game, it is the game," there are some amazing findings and observations in this post and the articles it points you to.

From Jeff Shiraki: What Can We Learn From the World’s Most Admired Companies?
"FORTUNE magazine recently released its annual list of the World’s Most Admired Companies and as we do every year, my colleagues and I at Hay Group took a deep look at the companies that made the list to determine what makes them “tick,” how they earn the admiration of their peers, and what organizations and leaders can learn from the practices of the “Most Admired” companies."

Wally's Comment: Jeff Shiraki is a Vice President at the Hay Group and he's guest-posting at Great Leadership about some Hay Group research underlying the most admired companies list in Fortune. He draws three powerful lessons from the research and presents them clearly.

From Scott Eblin: The Upside of Troughs
"This week I attended a conference where one of the keynoters was an interesting guy named Clark Aldrich. Clark is a designer of business learning simulations and knows a lot about how people solve problems. It turns out that one of the keys is you have to go through a lot of troughs to make progress."

Wally's Comment: There are two important things in this post. First, Scott Eblin describes the inevitable troughs that any project, campaign, or career goes through. Second he describes an effective way to deal with those situations that matches up well with Graham Wallas' creativity cycle (preparation, incubation, illumination, verification).

From Andrea Howe: The Five Essential Trust Skills: Don’t Leave Home Without Them
"A competency model won’t answer the mail when it comes to building trustworthiness—in fact, there’s risk in attempting to reduce trust to a series of behavioral definitions. At the same time, there is value in culling down the essential skills of a Trusted Advisor to a practical number."

Wally's Comment: If you want to be trusted, here's a quick description of some things you can do. They're simple and understandable.

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" which features five choice articles about fascinating people whose lives and comments you can learn from including Elizabeth Taylor, Dick Parsons, Sara Blakely, Banff's Brewster family, and Estee Lauder and her family.

Here, on Three Star Leadership, I post things that will help a boss at any level do better and live a better life. At Results vs Activities, I join other bloggers with posts on talent development. My blog at the Toolbox for HR is People and the Changing Workplace .

If you're a boss, you should check out my Working Supervisor's Support Kit.

And be sure to stop by at Weekly Leader where I'll offer you my Challenge of the Week.

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.