How to Be Awesome at Your Job

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1135: Patrick Lencioni on How to Identify Your Gifts for More Energizing Work Days

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Mar 9, 2026

Guest

Pat Lencioni

Pat Lencioni, founder of The Table Group and bestselling author on leadership and teamwork. He unpacks the Six Types of Working Genius and how to match tasks to your natural gifts. He talks humility, shame around weaknesses, practical job crafting, team mapping, and why aligning work to your strengths helps prevent burnout.

45:24

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insights

INSIGHT

Humility Means Knowing Your Truth

Humility is rooted in truth: knowing and owning both strengths and weaknesses.
Pat says real humility is celebrating others' gifts and speaking honestly about what you are and aren't good at.

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ADVICE

Investigate Wounds Behind Overworking

Try exploring emotional wounds if you feel persistent unease driving your work habits; therapy and resources like Be Healed or CPTSD work can help.
Pat found discovering childhood wounds reframed his motivations from fear to joy.

insights

INSIGHT

Burnout Is About The Work Not The Hours

Burnout usually comes from the nature of the work, not hours worked.
Pat discovered he was daily doing work outside his gifts and it slowly burned him out despite loving his company and mission.

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Humility as the Foundation for Teams

01:31 • 1min

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Humility, Psychological Safety, and Wounds

02:52 • 9min

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Origins of the Working Genius Model

12:00 • 9min

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Shame, Frustration, and Leaning Into Strengths

20:39 • 2min

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The Six Types: Wonder and Invention

22:29 • 4min

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Discernment and Galvanizing Explained

26:26 • 4min

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Enablement and Tenacity: Grounding Work

30:20 • 2min

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Match Jobs to Geniuses to Avoid Burnout

32:13 • 5min

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Practical Job Crafting and Team Mapping

37:34 • 3min

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How to Take the Assessment and Read Results

Pat's Favorite Quotes, Books, and Habits

45:02 • 2min

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Final Challenge: Be Vulnerable About Gifts

Odd Thomas, grieving the loss of his love Stormy, retreats to St. Bartholomew's Abbey in the Sierra Nevada mountains, hoping for peace among monks and children with disabilities. Accompanied by the ghost of Elvis, he detects bodachs—harbingers of violence—and a sinister bony creature called the Neverwas, drawn through the drawings of a young artist named Jacob. As danger escalates with mysterious disappearances and attacks, Odd teams up with abbey residents, including a former hitman and a physicist, to avert disaster and confront an ancient evil.

#32348

• Mentioned in 2 episodes

Be Healed

Bob Schutts

Be Healed by Dr. Bob Schutts is a work that addresses healing from a spiritual and psychological perspective, drawing on Catholic theology and Christian principles. The book has been used as a resource for reflection and discussion in Catholic communities and is associated with the John Paul II Center for Healing's mission of promoting inner healing and wholeness.

#156

• Mentioned in 137 episodes

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

A Leadership Fable

Patrick Lencioni

This book explores the fundamental causes of team failure and organizational politics through a narrative about a fictional company, DecisionTech, Inc. It outlines five dysfunctions: absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results. The book provides practical advice and real-world examples to help teams overcome these dysfunctions and become high-performing teams.

#3275

• Mentioned in 14 episodes

The Six Types of Working Genius

A Better Way to Understand Your Gifts, Your Frustrations, and Your Team

Patrick Lencioni

In this book, Patrick Lencioni introduces a framework that categorizes individuals into six types of working geniuses: Wonder, Invention, Discernment, Galvanizing, Enablement, and Tenacity. These geniuses are aligned with different stages of work—ideation, activation, and implementation—and highlight the importance of recognizing and leveraging individual strengths to enhance productivity and job satisfaction. Lencioni argues that when people work within their natural talents, they experience greater fulfillment and success, and teams become more effective and collaborative. The book also emphasizes the need to design roles around individuals’ working geniuses rather than traditional task-based job descriptions.

Pat Lencioni discusses how to tap into your genius to make work more fulfilling and energizing.

— YOU’LL LEARN —

1) How to stop feeling ashamed of your weaknesses

2) The six types of working genius

3) The real reason why so many professionals are burning out

Subscribe or visit AwesomeAtYourJob.com/ep1135 for clickable versions of the links below.

— ABOUT PAT —

Pat is one of the founders of The Table Group and is the pioneer of the organizational health movement. He is the author of 13 books, which have sold over 9 million copies and been translated into more than 30 languages.

As President of the Table Group, Pat spends his time speaking and writing about leadership, teamwork, and organizational health and consulting with executives and their teams. After more than twenty years in print, his classic book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, remains a fixture on national best-seller lists.

His most recent book, The Six Types of Working Genius, was released in September 2022, and he is also the host of the popular business podcast, At The Table with Patrick Lencioni.

• Assessment: Working Genius Assessment (use code: AWESOME for 20% off)

• Book: The 6 Types of Working Genius: A Better Way to Understand Your Gifts, Your Frustrations, and Your Team

• Podcast: At the Table Podcast

• Podcast: The Working Genius Podcast

• Website: TableGroup.com

• Website: WorkingGenius.com

— RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE SHOW —

• Book: Be Healed by Bob Schuchts

• Book: Brother Odd: An Odd Thomas Novel by Dean Koontz

• Past episode: 552: The Foundational Principle that Separates Good Leaders from Bad Ones with Pat Lencioni

• Past episode: 707: Amy Edmondson on How to Build Thriving Teams with Psychological Safety

— THANK YOU SPONSORS! —

• Monarch.com. Get 50% off your first year on with the code AWESOME.

• Vanguard. Give your clients consistent results year in and year out with vanguard.com/AUDIO

• Shopify. Sign up for your $1/month trial at Shopify.com/better

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