Karl Bimshas Consulting

09/03/2026

I’m doing a study on what’s actually getting in the way of leadership right now. I’m curious, what’s the leadership problem you see coming up most often these days? Respond in the comments, or take the survey.

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08/31/2026

Who Says You’re Ready to Lead?

Leadership is a behavior and a practice, not a credential. You don't become ready and then begin; you begin, and the work makes you better. And being willing to take responsibility for what happens next.

See this week's full essay: Who Says You’re Ready to Lead?
In the Reflections on Leadership Newsletter.

Become a better leader without being a jerk with this Boston-bred, California-chilled Leadership Advisor, Writer, & Podcast Host

08/19/2026

We’re conducting The Leadership Problems Pulse: What’s Getting in the Way?

It's a survey covering 30 leadership conditions and takes about 5–7 minutes to complete.

We’re inviting executives, business owners, managers, HR professionals, consultants, and others with a close view of organizational leadership to participate.

Take the survey → https://tally.so/r/ja4GM9

We will publish the findings in Fall 2026.
What are you seeing?

08/17/2026

This week’s Reflections on Leadership newsletter: "Accountability Isn’t a Threat". Check it out and subscribe to get my leadership insights and tips first.
https://karlbimshas.kit.com/posts/accountability-isn-t-a-threat

08/13/2026

The Concept of a Leadership User Guide

To eliminate the guessing game, you should create a simple, one-page guide that outlines what it is like to work with you. This is not a complex technical manual. Rather, it answers the practical questions your team wants to know: what you consistently value, how you make decisions, what behaviors earn your trust, what causes friction, where you are still growing, and how you might be misunderstood. Sharing your vulnerabilities upfront makes people more understanding and willing to give you grace when you make mistakes.

08/12/2026

The Cost of Making Your Team Guess
You might think you are easy to work with because you are fully aware of your own plans, quirks, and aspirations, but your team cannot read your mind. When leaders fail to communicate clearly, they “lead by whim” and leave people guessing.
A massive communication breakdown occurs when leaders assume their intentions automatically translate into directions. Painting a beautiful, grand vision is not enough if you do not tell your team how to actually get there. Leadership requires you to stop telling your people “you should know” or “we’ve done this a thousand times,” and instead provide explicit, unambiguous instructions.

08/06/2026

There are plenty of people who are capable of leading, that have just never been given the chance to lead nor the instruction on how to lead. One of the kind of beautiful things about this I think, is that there are so many people who are very capable of leading they just never knew that they could, because nobody ever gave them permission. Now, I personally don’t think you need permission to lead.You need consent of those who you are trying to lead, because if they’re not following you, you’re not really leading. But, you should always be able to discover or to test to see if you’re any good at leading.

08/05/2026

The Performance Trap
This is cliche but you’ve seen the great sales rep., doing great at sales, and then they get promoted and become a sales manager, and they’re lousy as a sales manager, because they don’t have the skill sets to manage all the process or to lead people. And maybe they hate. Maybe they were really great with sales. They love talking with customers. They love innovative ideas, and all that, but they’re not so big into the problem solving. They’re not so big into dealing with the day-to-day minutia that comes uh with leading people perhaps. There’s lots of reasons. We think somebody’s got great performance and so therefore they should be a great leader. Like leadership is some sort of capstone event. The other way around it is that we don’t even consider people who could be potentially really good leaders. And this one probably drives me personally crazy a little bit more.

08/05/2026

Labeling vs. Developing
Leadership Is Discovered, Not Declared.
One of the fastest ways that you can predict whether there’s a leadership problem going in your organization is that decisions are made by whim or vibe instead of evidence. One of the things that drives me nuts is when people have decided that somebody is or is not leadership material. They’re labeling people instead of developing them. You’ll hear things like, “she’s doesn’t have leadership potential” or “there’s no way he can manage”, and many times those give me pause because when you examine it a little bit, often those utterances are coming from somebody who is not doing a great leadership job themselves, so how good is their judgement?

07/17/2026