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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 becoming a leader for all the wrong reasons, how to influence, the leader as gardener, learning from success, and taking time to re-think.

From Tanveer Naseer: Becoming A Leader For All The Wrong Reasons
"No matter what field or industry you work in, we’ve all had the experience of working for someone who was clearly not fit for the leadership role. In some cases, this was manifested in their inability to make key decisions and in the worst-case scenarios, it was like working with the boss from hell. Under these situations, it’s typical to wonder why someone who can’t effectively lead others would be given such a position. Now, thanks to two recent studies, some light has been cast on why these situations are more the rule than the exception."

Wally's Comment: Tanveer Naseer takes a research-driven approach to the issue of why we have a lot of bosses who shouldn't be bosses. I took an anecdotal approach in my recent post, "A New Boss Who Shouldn't Be One ."

From Andy Klein: A leader's dilemma: What's the best way to influence action?
"At Fortune, we define leadership as the skill of attaining predetermined objectives with and through the voluntary cooperation and effort of other people. We could dissect this definition all day, but for now we'll focus on the last part: How can a leader achieve voluntary cooperation and effort from their people? Or in other words, how can they influence them to act as they'd like?"

Wally's Comment: In most leadership training, "influence people" is an exhortation with few specifics attached. Here's a post that remedies that problem.

From Kevin Eikenberry: Five Reasons Remarkable Leaders Are Master Gardeners
"While the purposes may be different, the steps gardeners take to prepare the soil, plant, and care for their gardens are very similar and actually very instructive for us as leaders. Below are five major connections between a master gardener who is growing plants and a remarkable leader who is growing people."

Wally's Comment: Here's a post about a productive way to think about your role as a boss and how you relate to team members. Many writers have used this analogy, including Erika Andersen in her great book, Growing Great Employees. You can read my summary and review here.

From Stephen J. Gill: Learn From Success or Learn From Failure: You Decide
"We learn more from studying successes than we do from studying failure. I have become convinced of this from my experience evaluating many change interventions in many different types of organizations."

Wally's Comment: "Is it better to learn from success or learn from failure?" The answer is, "Yes!" You can and should learn from both, but the lessons and the situations are different. Stephen J. Gill outlines when and how to do both.

From Art Petty: Making Time to Glimpse the Future and Re-Think
"As technology finally begins to catch up to our long-standing vision for how it can positively change our work lives and our businesses, it may just be time for us to rethink our stone-age approaches on how we work."

Wally's Comment: It's good to take time and reflect and Art Petty suggests that you should use your reflection time to ponder the future. Peter Drucker advised us, rightly, that the only thing we can know for sure about the future is that it will be different, but don't let that stop you from thinking about what's just over the hill. This post is mostly about technology, but you also can reflect on social, demographic, and political drivers of change.

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 from the business schools, the business press and major consulting firms. The last issue had pointers to articles about advice for woman executives from women who are executives, conversation and innovation, organizational change, teleworking, and leadership development.

How I Select Posts for this Midweek Review

The five posts I select to share in my Midweek Review of the Independent Business Blogs are picked from a regular review of about sixty blogs I check daily and an additional twenty-five or so that I check occasionally. Here's how I select the posts you see in this review.

They must be published within the previous week.

They must support the purpose of the blog: to help leaders at all levels do a better job and lead a better life.

The must be from an independent business blog.

As a general rule, I only select posts that stand on their own, no selections from a series.

I reserve the right to make exceptions to the above.

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.

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.