It's not easy to stay on top of your game. In fact, most teams fall into a complacent trap where they stop trying to improve and stagnate. 

As a leader, it's important to fight against complacency and always be looking for ways to improve both yourself and your team. I host Leslie Kass, CEO of Lewis Tree Service, one of the largest providers of utility vegetation management services in North America, who shares an essential strategy to stay sharp and fight complacency.

They are 100% employee-owned with approximately 4,000 employees in the U.S. and Canada providing a wide range of vegetation management services and expertise including around-the-clock utility line clearing and outage response resources. 

Leslie has 28 years of experience in the industrial and energy spaces including serving as CEO of Babcock & Wilcox, a publicly- traded 150-year-old power generation and environmental equipment company and Executive Vice President of TC Energy.

Leslie has an undergraduate degree in Materials Science and Engineering from MIT and an MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. She currently serves on the board of Bruce Power nuclear facility (the largest nuclear generation site in the world).

Leslie is a U.S. citizen and a permanent resident of Canada and has held Top Secret level security clearances in both countries associated with her work in nuclear energy.

LinkedIn Profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/lesliekass

Company Link: https://lewistree.com

What You’ll Discover in this Episode:

• What’s it like having top secret clearance in two countries.
• How you become a trailblazing leader.
• What she's learned as the first female engineer in so many of her jobs -- at her first employer, as engineering manager in a large nuclear power plant, and CEO of a 150-year-old industrial company. 
• How you can identify great advocates in your career.
• A key strategy to fight complacency on your team.
• The one trait she’d instill in every employee and why.
• What’s it like leading a company that’s 100% employee owned.
• A twist in her career that led to her success down the road.
• How an executive coach was helpful in her career.
• Two songs every leader needs on their playlist.
• The helpful tool she uses every day.

Resources:

Think Again, Adam Grant https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08H177WQP/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 

Patrick Lecioni https://www.amazon.com/Patrick-M.-Lencioni/e/B001ILFMB2%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share 

Ben Rector, Living My Best Life https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzGbBxfpoGw 

Survivor, Eye of the Tiger https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btPJPFnesV4 

Quotes:

“Your standards are not what you ask for. They are what you accept.”

-----

Connect with the Host, #1 bestselling author Ben Fanning

Speaking and Training inquires

Subscribe to my Youtube channel

LinkedIn

Instagram

Twitter