Top Management Blogs

The Top 100 Management and Leadership Blogs That All Managers Should Bookmark

By HR World Editors on June 10, 2008

Are you looking for inspiration on leadership and management? Lucky for you, the folks who live and breathe leadership and management every day enjoy sharing their thoughts and successes with the masses. Check out these top 100 blogs to help bolster your business acumen.

Leadership

1. CEO Blog — Time Leadership: Jim Estill, CEO of SYNNEX Canada, talks about how you, too, can meet business success.
2. Dispatches from the New World of Work: Tom Peters heads a consulting services company. His personal motto: “The starting point of all significant change is mindset.”
3. Extreme Leadership: Have you heard of extreme sports? Well, now there are extreme leaders, too. Steve Farber heads up Extreme Leaders Inc., a business-development company, and he also shares his thoughts on his site.
4. Leading Blog — Building a Community of Leaders: Michael McKinney thinks that everyone is a leader. Find out how to tap into your potential with his musings about learning, creativity and communication.
5. Leadership Turn: “Leaders DO — and it's your turn,” according to this site solely based on leadership and management.
6. Management Craft: Management is an art, according to Lisa Haneberg, a professional management and leadership trainer, coach, and organization-development consultant.
7. LeaderValues: LeaderValues aims to help leaders in all kinds of organizations and provide a meeting place for emerging trailblazers.
8. Slow Leadership: The title of this blog is legitimate: Postings are aimed at truly developing a leader through mindset and behavior change.
9. Say Leadership Coaching: This Polynesian-themed blog offers mentoring, coaching and training advice to managers and leaders.
10. Wally Bock's Three Star Leadership Blog: Wally Bock’s very easy-to-scan site dishes up regular doses of information on leadership issues for North American business leaders.

Creativity and Inspiration

11. A Budding Contrapreneur: This snappy new blog by Matthew K. Ing talks about ideas and why some fail.
12. Liderlik/Leadership: Both English and German readers can check this blog to become inspired.
    
13. Life Beyond Code: Categories on this blog cover business models, distinguishing yourself and innovation.
14. Stephen Shapiro: Changing the Rules of Innovation and Creativity...: Steve shares his “unconventional approach on business innovation, creativity, goals, performance and critical thinking.”
15. Simplicity: The author of "Simplicity Is the Key" offers tips and tidbits on management, such as “Staff at the front line know all the answers. All the time.”
16. Springwise: Springwise offers a wellspring of ideas for entrepreneurs.
17. Orrin Woodward Leadership Team: Orrin discusses “ideas of consequence.”
18. Leading Answers: This blog offers leadership and agile project-management ideas, observations and resources.
19. Crossderry Blog: You’ll learn how to see “the forest for the trees” and take “the correct fork before heading into the woods” on this site.
20. Creative Energy Officer: Recharge weekly with “ideas and insights for optimistic, yet cynical humans.”
21. Troyworman.com: Troy Worman cultivates creativity in every page of this blog.
22. Chief Happiness Officer: Alex apparently is the “leading expert at happiness at work.” If you think “happiness” and “work” can’t possibly go together, fill up on his posts, which include research, lists and cute pictures.
23. Slacker Manager: With pictures, funny lists and useful tips, this slacker blog works hard to keep you interested.
24. The Bing Blog: You’ll surely find out what not to do to become an effective leader in this blog that covers bad jobs, bad bosses and how to zone out in an all-day meeting.
25. The Bogle E-Blog: The founder of The Vanguard Group Inc. tells you how to be as successful as he is.
26. Iinnovate: Iinnovate is a podcast by students at Stanford University's Business and Design Schools.
27. How to Change the World: This “practical blog for impractical people” shares the secrets of being an agent of change.
28. BrandSoul: This consultant wants to help you awaken the soul of business with some inspirations and ideas.
29. Digital Roam: You’ll clear up the fog in your mind’s eye with this site on visual thinking.

    Self-Awareness

30. The Leadership Evolution: This site offers quotes, examples and information from books on leadership.
31. BrainCram: Brain Cram inundates your mind and soul with lengthy posts on you and your work.
32. Timothy Coote: Timothy Coote works for a French company but gives you his views in English.
33. Lead on Purpose: This site fosters discussions on being a leader in your organization.
34. The Recovering Leader: Another behavior-modification approach to building your inner leader can be found at this blog.
35. Marshall Goldsmith Blog: The co-founder of Marshall Goldsmith Partners LLC, a network of top-level executive coaches, wants to help “successful leaders get even better.”
36. The Practice of Leadership: How-tos and inspiring quotes fill this blog.
37. Zinger On Strength-Based Leadership:“Strength-based leadership applies strengths, caring and energy in the service of engagement. Powerful leaders transform energy into engagement leading to improved results.”
38. Seth Godin's BLog: The best-selling author, entrepreneur and “agent of change” gives you personal insights on the leadership landscape.
39. 800-CEO-READ Blog: Do what the blog says and read up on the latest on business books, authors and the publishing industry.
40. Bigger Isn't Always Better: This blog imparts the wisdoms of the book of the same name, which was written by management consultant Bob Tomasko.
41. The Long Tail: Chris Anderson, editor in chief of Wired magazine, shares the theories behind his book "The Long Tail," which purports that the economy is shifting its attention from mainstream products and markets to niches.
42. David Maister: This leading authority on the management of professional-service firms shares his ideas with readers.
43. Mavericks at Work: This blog covers "Mavericks at Work," a veritable how-to book for “what-if executives and entrepreneurs — a collection of new and provocative answers to some of the most basic questions facing companies of every size and leaders in every field.”

    Development, Marketing and Finance

44. Kent Blumberg: Learn leadership, strategy and performance tips at this site.
45. Pink Slip: Maureen Rogers wants to make sure that you don’t get the pink slip and offers advice on business lessons learned the hard way.
46. Ed Batista: Executive coach and change-management consultant Ed Batista wants to tell you how to become the best possible leader.
47. Business Pundit: Learn how to cope when your venture fails, the six traits of idiot bosses and other useful leadership information.
48. Sanders Says: “Sanders Says is an advice Weblog about business, culture and spirit.”
49. Managing Leadership: Stay on your toes with this blog “designed to help busy directors and executives understand how leadership really works in their organizations.
50. Coaching Tip: The Leadership Blog: Get daily doses of leadership development advice on the go.
51. SustainableWork: Novices can get tips for innovation, startups and emerging enterprises, while established leaders can get know-how on developing sustainable new products and services.
52. Signal vs. Noise: This blog discusses design, business, experience, simplicity, the Web, culture and more.
53. apbLIFESUCCESS Blog: Positive posts permeate this site.
54. Mary Schmidt: This marketing troubleshooter wants to help you get your business back on track.
55. Trusted Advisor Associates: Speaker and executive educator Charles H. Green tells you how to build trust in your business.
56. ASK THE CZAR: You’ll never again require business advice from another source, according to Gerry “the Czar” Czarnecki.
57. The Trump Blog: Financial fodder straight from the Don’s mouth.
58. The Becker-Posner Blog: Becker and Posner are the Siskel and Ebert of business and financial info.
59. Digital Rules: The Blog: The publisher of Forbes magazine blogs about — you guessed it — business and finance, along with a smattering of politics.
60. Feld Thoughts: Emailing, rejection and photos of bloody injuries greet you on this blog by Brad Feld, an investor and entrepreneur.

    Using Technology

61. Web Worker Daily: The site amasses advice for using the Web for work..
62. Biz Stone: The co-founder and creative director of Twitter ruminates on social media and business.
63. Scobleizer: Known as a “technical evangelist,” Robert Scoble can help you discover the newest ways of communicating with customers.
64. Marketing with Technology and More: Jordan Ayan, CEO of SubscriberMail LLC, an email-marketing service, offers tips on marketing using technology and email marketing.
65. The Business Blog at Intuitive.com: These online strategies and communication tips are applicable to leadership.
66. TomBomb.com: Tom Hayes is the bomb at discussing viral business.
67. MarketingProfs Daily Fix: These professors will tell you how to market your business using social-media, Web 2.0 and other tools.
68. Daniel H. Pink: Businessman, author and lecturer Dan Pink blogs about business and technology in the new workplace.
69. Listen Up: John Porcaro's unofficial blog about marketing, public relations, the Xbox, management and personal life.
70. Pause: Personal anecdotes pepper this blog by Jory Des Jardins, a media consultant who works with businesses and media companies to develop communications strategies.

    Getting Results

71. Steve Yastrow: Reinvent the way your company connects with customers through Yastrow’s know-how.
72. Bob Sutton: Gear up to get better results with the professor of management science and engineering at Stanford University's School of Engineering.
73. PyroMarketing: Greg Stielstra, author of "PyroMarketing: The Four Step Strategy to Ignite Customer Evangelists and Keep Them For Life," shares his marketing mastery on his blog.
74. Bird's Eye View: Learn how to better engage employees and get results with this blog by Susan W. Bird, an author and expert on leadership.
75. ManagementIQ: BusinessWeek writers Diane Brady, Michelle Conlin and Jena McGregor gather insights from the business thinkers and critique the latest management trends to help you manage smarter.
76. Fred Reichheld: Fred Reichheld blogs about bettering your business through customer, employee and partner loyalty.
77. Cali and Jody: Cali and Jody created ROWE — Results-Only Work Environment — to reinvent the relationship between employers and the people who get the work done.
78. Made to Stick: Another blog based on a book, this one is about communicating ideas that will sink in.
79. KR Connect: Kevin Roberts serves as the CEO Worldwide of Saatchi & Saatchi, one of the world's leading creative organizations, which employs more than 7,000 people in 83 countries. Translation: He knows his stuff.
80. Management by Baseball: “Management consultant and ex-baseball reporter Jeff Angus shows you almost everything you need to know about management you can learn from baseball.”
81. Rock & Roll Lessons: John O’Leary blogs about business lessons from rock-and-roll bands, which he also using to compile a book.
82. Play the Game of Life: Columbia University Business School graduate and world traveler Ryan Petersen shares his thoughts on business.

    Branding

83. The Engaging Brand Blog: Employee-management tips permeate this blog by Anna Farmery, speaker and social-media coach.
84. Influxinsights: “The goal of Influx is to provide ideas for brands that help connect them to culture and allow them to thrive” by “using a combination of skill sets: Account planning, anthropology, trend forecasting and creativity, Influx helps create future pathways for brands.”
85. Hog Blog: Action, insight and inspiration will make you happy that you checked out these musings from a speaker, author and branding expert on radical innovation.
86. MartinLindstrom.com: Martin Lindstrom, who founded his own advertising agency at the age of 12, is a branding guru who imparts knowledge on transforming marketing strategies into positive business results.
87. Name Wire: Experts with experience at Pillsbury, Kraft Foods Inc., Pizza Hut inc. and other companies blog about brand development and strategy.
88. The Simmons SOM Library Blog: This blog is for the Simmons College School of Management community and is maintained by the school's librarians.
89. Frontline Leadership TRENDS: Get leadership tips, lessons and ideas.
90. Personal Branding Blog: Learn how to not abandon your brand but instead see it through from conception to completion and beyond.
91. What's Your Brand Mantra?: Jennifer Rice blogs about brand strategy, integrated marketing communications and customer research.
92. Metacool: Marketer, engineer and educator Diego Rodriguez wants to inspire your innovation.

    Women

93. The Power of the Purse: Fara Warner finesses on how companies can cater to “the world’s most important consumers”— women.
94. The Wild WE: This fun blog targets businesswomen.
95. WonderBranding: More useful information on marketing to women appears on Michele Miller’s blog.
96. Great Leadership: Opinions on information on leadership and leadership development by Dan McCarthy, manager of leadership and management development at an undisclosed Fortune 500 company.
97. Learned on Women: This blog researches female customers to help your business target them.
98. Boomer Women Marketing: Mary Brown, president and founder of Imago Creative — the only marketing firm in the U.S. specializes exclusively in marketing to baby boomer women — shares her beliefs about creative branding relying on human connections.
99. Rethink Pink: News about marketing to women can be found at this blog.
100. Women's Leadership Exchange Blog: Leslie Grossman threads news and politics with business basics for women.

The Top 25 HR Blogs

By David Hakala on December 19, 2007

Surveying the HR blogosphere can be like searching for a rose in a desert. The landscape is littered with abandoned efforts, but there is a close-knit family.

1. Career Hub: This blog focuses on career and job-search strategies and tactics. No fewer than 24 career-counseling and employment professionals contribute to its content. Career Hub contains a wealth of information.
2. Cheezhead: Author Joel Cheesman is one of the most widely read bloggers on emerging recruitment issues and has won several “best of” awards in the category. The tiniest new development doesn't get past Cheesman, and he’s guaranteed to blog about it.
3. SixDegrees from Dave: Dave Mendoza is recognized for his expertise in the integration of sourcing methodologies, employment branding and recruitment techniques. SixDegrees from Dave spotlights HR industry leaders, sourcing gurus, global staffing practices and social networking.
4. Gautam Ghosh: A prolific blogger, HR management consultant Gautam Ghosh writes from India, though most of his posts on every conceivable HR topic have a global tone to them.
5. Insourced's Employment and Jobs Blog: It’s hard to say which is more attractive, the blog or the job-search engine. The blog touches on issues ranging from job hunting to work/life balance, while the search engine covers the entire United States.
6. Evil HR Lady: Written anonymously by “an HR professional in a Fortune 500 company,” this blog reeks of “been there.” The Evil HR Lady has seen it all, done it all and blogs about it all.
7. good to know: Martin Burns, recruiting manager for ZoomInfo Inc., writes this blog about career-search and recruitment practices. Tips on interviewing from either side of the desk, how to source candidates online, what to wear (never sandals) and how to write a cover letter are all covered.
8. GoodRecruits: Robert Merrell, a technical recruiter and talent manager for executives, hiring managers and job seekers, writes the GoodRecruits blog. His main theme is how to use blogs as marketing and communications tools in job searches or recruiting.
9. HR Tests: Written by Bryan Baldwin, an HR consultant in Olympia, Wash., this blog has timely news of laws, regulations, products and conferences concerning testing and assessment instruments. Baldwin also writes the HR Coal blog, which deals primarily with the management of technical talent.
10. HR Thoughts: A good all-around HR blog covering everything from recruitment to EAPs (Employee Assistance Programs) to performance evaluations to professional book reviews and more. It's written by Lisa Rosendahl, an HR manager in a medical facility.
11. Beyond HR: Written by an anonymous HR professional, this blog covers the leading edge of employment branding, search-engine sourcing and other modern HR innovations.
12. Dr. John Sullivan & Associates: Sullivan is a consultant to management on everything related to HR. His blog is full of articles on college recruiting, employee-screening and -assessment tests, training, and new-hire orientation.
13. HR and Strategies: This graduate student combines HR philosophies and news in a blog that is at once thoughtful and informative.
14. HR Daily Advisor: Published by BLR Business & Legal Reports, a vendor of training aids and resources for HR professionals, HR Daily Advisor offers a deep and broad archive of tips on ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act), compensation, FLSA (Fair Labor Standards Act)/wages, harassment, hiring and recruiting, general HR management, and more.
15. HRMetrics.org: HRMetrics.org is all about things that can be measured and how to measure them — from retention effectiveness to home worker productivity.
16. HR Web Café: This blog concerns general workplace issues, employment matters and work trends. Sponsored by ESI Employee Assistance Group (an EAP), its posts are frequent and detailed.
17. Breaking Human Resource News: This is a welcome blog, serving up constantly updated news about products and services for the HR professional, from software to EAPs.
18. CharlotteRecruiting: Written by a recruiting specialist in Charlotte, N.C., this blog has advice on managing staffing firms, interviewing and other recruiting topics.
19. Jibber Jobber: Jason Alba runs this popular blog, which is heavy on summaries and links to other HR bloggers’ posts. This is a great blog for quickly scanning the best posts of the day. Jason’s own posts and guest bloggers make insightful reading, too.
20. Chief Happiness Officer: Consultant Alexander Kjerulf teaches HR departments and entrepreneurs how to transform their workplaces from dreary and stressful to fun, energized and happy.
21. Generations@Work: This blog will help you relieve the tensions among Baby Boomers, Generation X and Generation Y workers. It is written by Russell Eckel, an expert in organizational and workforce development who now consults mainly on the Millenial Generation.
22. Human Resources 101: As the title implies, this blog steps through the nitty-gritty of HR management and policy development, with topics such as “How Graphic Should A Workplace Safety Ad Be?” and “50 Behavior-Based Interview Questions.”
23. Employment Law Blog: Check out this great blog to learn how to throw an office party without being sued, download forms, stay abreast of employee-rights decisions and much more.
24. Inside Human Resources Blog: A good place to learn about trends in workforce demographics and the attitudes of younger generations.
25. The Human Capitalist: A well-informed review of news about HR technology written by industry guru Jason Corsello, a vice president with HR technology consultancy Knowledge Infusion.

10 Must-Read Online-Recruiting Blogs

By David Hakala on April 3, 2008

The Web is full of blogs written by and for recruiting professionals. One site, Recruitingblogs.com, has over 3,000 members.

Many are personal blogs, full of random ramblings about politics, ecology, Web 2.0 and other unrelated subjects. Others are promotions of seminars, webinars, books and training workshops offered by the blogs’ proprietors. What the online-recruiting blog world really needs is a blog that is all about the techniques of online recruiting. Most blogs drop a hint or two, but the real trade secrets seem to be locked up in for-fee seminars and other products. That’s to be expected in a hot industry where the tricks of the trade are learned by trial and error.

But there are some blogs that focus on recruiting topics. Here are a few of the best:

1. Six Degrees From Dave: Dave is a principal of recruitment-training firm Dave Mendoza & Associates Inc. Self-described as a “master cybersleuth," Mendoza is an affiliate partner of Shally Sheckert’s Jobmachine.com. His blog spotlights HR-industry leaders, sourcing gurus, global-staffing practices and social networking. It was also recently named Best Overall Recruitment Blog of 2007 by Hireability.com.

2. Advanced Online Recruiting Techniques: Blog author Glenn Gutmacher has been an interactive-products manager for Community Newspaper Company, where he launched the JobSmart site in 1996. Since then, Gutmacher has focused on teaching companies the ins and outs of using the Internet to recruit talent. His blog is full of tips on how to find managerial candidates based on number of direct reports, how to find qualified candidates on LinkedIn.com, how online marriage announcements can generate candidates and much more.

3. Krista Bradford: Bradford is an Emmy Award-winning investigative journalist turned retained-search consultant. Her firm, The Good Search, was founded in 1997. Bradford’s self-titled blog focuses on brand-building and using the Internet to generate buzz about a company. She also discusses relationships between recruiters and employers, social networks, how to mine résumés for contacts within a company and other topics of interest to recruiters and HR professionals. Her recent post about the valuable connection between HR and corporate social responsibility is worth a read.

4. Shally's Blog (on Jobmachine.com): This blog draws people to Shally Sheckert’s candidate-sourcing, research-consulting and seminar business. The posts are frequent and interesting to recruiting professionals. The latest, as of this writing, concerns a new LinkedIn feature that provides competitive intelligence on contacts' companies. Other posts discuss search-engine optimization for career sites; software that integrates with LinkedIn and other business networks; and plugs for various recruiting seminars put on by Sheckert and his colleagues.

5. Old Cheezhead: This blog is authored by Joel Cheesman, a well-known blogger, speaker, entrepreneur and “agent of change” for online-recruitment topics. Cheesman is a firm believer in the power of search-engine optimization to promote companies’ career sites and job listings. His motto is, “You don’t need Monster when have Google.” The online-recruitment category of his blog features interviews with major industry players, news about startup job sites and social networks, tips on video résumés, workplace diversity and more.

6. CollegeRecruiter.com Blog: This corporate blog by the CollegeRecruiter.com career site is full of news about Facebook and MySpace applications; the economy and recruiting; new recruiting and interviewing techniques (e.g., adidas Group gives away free webcams to short-listed interviewees); and how small firms are using Facebook and YouTube LLC to recruit entry-level employees. Articles for both recruiters and job seekers abound, such as “How to Recruit Great Interns” and “Salary Negotiation Tips for College Students and Recent Grads.”

7. RecruitingBloggers.com: RecruitingBloggers.com aggregates blog posts from around the recruiting-blog world. Articles are by some of the top names in online recruiting, such as Jim Stroud. Recent topics include recruitment advertising, the outlook for recent college graduates, new Facebook applications, social media relationships and “flip searching” to find passive candidates.

8. GoodRecruits: This blog “offers tips, resources and insight on how to get the most out of those recruiting dollars,” and is maintained by Mary Elaine Ramos. It concerns offline as well as online recruiting techniques, such as recruitment advertising, interviewing skills and salary negotiations.

9. Tales From the Digital Side: Tales From the Digital Side is a well-written blog by Laura Shannon, vice president of Interactive Sourcing & Strategy for Bernard Hodes Group. Shannon has been involved in online recruitment since 2000. Her blog discusses the recruitment value of affinity circles, demographically targeted recruitment advertisements on Google, search-engine optimization strategy for career sites, behavioral targeting in recruitment advertising and much more.

10. Ask The Recruiter: This blog is by “Dakotta”, who works in the online-media section of the Los Angeles Times. Recent topics include “How to find diversity candidates on LinkedIn," “Finding Résumés with Social Networking" and “Grokker.com: A Recruiter’s 2nd Best Friend”. Dakotta also speculates on general HR topics like creating a well-balanced work environment and using HR metrics to measure the effectiveness of different recruiting channels.