252. Where There's Smoke...

At The Table with Patrick Lencioni

Patrick Lencioni

Pat, Business, Success, Work, Entrepreneurship, Companyculture, Patricklencioni, Teamwork, Leadership, Organizationalhealth, Culture, Management

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 30 September 2025

⏱️ 15 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What happens to a culture when leaders ignore problems?

In episode 252 of At The Table, Patrick and Cody explore the leadership principle of running toward the fire. They discuss why leaders often ignore the “smoke” of personnel or cultural issues, hoping problems will resolve themselves. Instead, they argue that credibility, trust, and organizational health are built when leaders courageously confront issues before they spread.

Topics explored in this episode:

00:35 – Seeing Smoke

* Leaders set the tone by how they respond to problems.

03:33 – Defining the Fire

* Personnel problems are the most commonly ignored fires in organizations.

06:03 – Why Leaders Avoid the Fire

* Confrontation feels messy and uncomfortable, especially when emotions are involved.

09:45 – The Cost of Avoidance

* Ignoring smoke damages credibility, weakens leadership muscle, and sets a bad cultural example.

12:20 – Regaining Credibility

* Leaders can only rebuild trust through visible action, not promises.

This episode of At The Table with Patrick Lencioni is brought to you by The Table Group: https://www.tablegroup.com. We teach leaders how to make work more effective and less dysfunctional. We also help their employees be more fulfilled and less miserable.

At The Table is a podcast that lives at the connection between work life, leadership, organizational health, and culture. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts (https://apple.co/4hJKKSL), Spotify (https://spoti.fi/4l1aop0), and YouTube (https://bit.ly/At-The-Table-YouTube).

Follow Pat Lencioni on https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-lencioni-orghealth, http://www.youtube.com/@PatrickLencioniOfficial, and https://x.com/patricklencioni.

Be sure to check out our other podcast, The Working Genius Podcast with Patrick Lencioni, on Apple Podcasts (https://apple.co/4iNz6Yn), Spotify (https://spoti.fi/4iGGm8u), and YouTube (https://bit.ly/Working-Genius-YouTube).

Let us know your feedback via [email protected].

This episode was produced by Story On Media: https://www.storyon.co.

Transcript

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0:00.0	They see you see smoke and turn away from it.
0:03.0	They're going to do that too.
0:04.6	And other employees are going to do that too.
0:06.4	And pretty soon you're going to be creating an environment where everybody else assumes somebody else's job it is to take care of things.
0:17.7	Welcome to At the Table, the podcast that lives at the intersection of leadership, culture, organizational health, and teamwork.
0:24.9	My name is Pat Lanchone. I'm your host, joined by Cody Thompson, my co-host.
0:29.2	Good afternoon, Cody. How are you doing?
0:31.6	I'm doing great, Pat. Yeah. Happy to be here.
0:34.2	Yeah. What's our podcast topic today, Cody?
0:37.3	We're calling it Run Towards the Fire.
0:40.2	Yeah.
0:40.8	Something that this is a podcast for leaders today about leadership.
0:45.6	And it pretty much is completely the opposite of most people, what they should do.
0:50.2	There's a fire.
0:51.2	Run toward it.
0:52.2	You know, like I've heard about navy seals they're like we run
0:55.6	toward the gunfire and i love the buffalo culture they talk about buffaloes run toward the storm that's
1:03.7	coming unlike all the other animals because they huddle their own animals around to protect them
1:08.1	and if you're a leader and you see smoke, you should run toward
1:14.7	that to figure it out. And that's really what this is about is the times when we as leaders see a
1:19.6	problem in our organization or in our environment, and we have a choice to make. Like, am I going to go
1:25.0	check into that? Am I going to confront this? Am I going to run toward that? Or am I going to hope it takes care of itself? And this sounds
	...

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