199. Going Beneath Authenticity, Autonomy & Accountability with Andrea Wanerstrand

Have you ever wondered what truly sets great leaders apart in today’s fast-paced workplaces? In this episode, I talked with Andrea Wanerstrand, whose career spans Microsoft, Meta, T-Mobile, and more, to dig into the real meaning behind authenticity, autonomy, and accountability. Andrea shares eye-opening stories about breaking out of comfort zones, fostering trust, and the mindset shift needed to fuel powerful teams. Listen to discover practical tips you can use right away to inspire not just action, but true ownership in your organization.

Resources:

• Website: https://a3culturelab.com/

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreawanerstrand/

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andreawanerstrand/

About Andrea:

Andrea Wanerstrand is a leadership strategist, executive coach, and cultural transformation expert with 25+ years inside some of the world’s most complex organizations—including Microsoft, Meta, T-Mobile, and Hitachi. As the Founder & CEO of A3 Culture Lab, and the creator of the Mindset Maven Method, Andrea helps leaders make bold shifts—from control to connection, performance to presence, and burnout to bold cultural influence.

Andrea has designed and led transformational programs in performance management, leadership development, and coaching, impacting leaders across 100+ countries. Her A3 philosophy—Authentic, Autonomous, and Accountable—is the foundation of her mission: to build extraordinary, human-centric workplaces where people actually thrive.

Through her work, Andrea blends neuroscience, behavioral strategy, and straight-up clarity to drive powerful change in how leaders lead—and how people feel at work. Her message is simple but disruptive: Culture doesn’t start with a handbook. It starts with how leaders show up. And when leaders get that right, everything changes.

When she’s not on stage speaking or coaching leaders on reshaping the future of work, Andrea’s on her lavender farm on Maury Island, just outside the city of Seattle, swapping corporate chaos for clarity and intention. She and her partner are avid boaters, exploring the islands of the Salish Sea on their Nordic Tugboat.

Transcript

While it's not perfect, we offer this transcription by Castmagic for those who prefer to read or who are hearing impaired.

Teri Schmidt [00:00:02]:

Well, hello Andrea. Welcome to the Strong Leaders Serve podcast.

Andrea Wanerstrand [00:00:06]:

Hi Teri, it's great to be here. Thank you for having me.

Teri Schmidt [00:00:09]:

I know your career has been quite extensive, spanning Microsoft, Meta, T Mobile, Hitachi, and now you have your own A3 culture lab. So I'd like to jump right in and just would love to hear a little bit about your journey and what experiences led you in particular to focus on authenticity, autonomy and accountability.

Andrea Wanerstrand [00:00:32]:

The really long story because I have been circling this earth for a while, but I actually was an IT program manager in telecommunications for the first 18 years. And around the early aughts I was working at T Mobile and I was putting in HR systems and the VP of HR called me up one day to her office and she's like, I gotta have a conversation with you. And when your stakeholder says that, you're like. And she goes, you, you're really good at your job. I go. In my mind I'm like, this is not going in a great way. But I noticed that your eyes glaze over when you talk about bug reports and software next releases, but you really light up when you talk about the people side. And I've got a job for it.

Andrea Wanerstrand [00:01:14]:

And so she brought me on as her director of org effectiveness. I promptly went out and said to myself, I've got to get something touchy feely because I haven't worked in hr. So I went and got certified as an executive coach and that really started my journey of understanding the human centricity of our organizations. And while I'd been working at it from an angle of processes and procedures, I really was able to dive in and had a real high interest in how do we drive performance, how do we have honest conversations that feel safe when there is a power dynamic. And fast forward 20 some odd years later and all the different places that you've listed out, plus a few more, I've had the opportunity to look at performance, look at leaders, look at how change happens and how we use our mindsets to actually navigate in today's business world.

Teri Schmidt [00:02:17]:

I love the story about the leader. Just noticing that your eyes were glazing over when you were talking about bug reports, but that you did have that spark when it came to dealing with people and developing people.

Andrea Wanerstrand [00:02:29]:

She definitely saw something in me and it took me a while for me to see what she saw. I jumped in it. But it was actually the start of imposter syndrome for me, like calling it that in 2004. But it also was a great way for me to learn from myself over the years. How our mindset and how we show up is really impactful to our own mind, body, health, and the way we have a career trajectory and how other people might feeling, be feeling in the workplace with stress or imposter syndrome or whatever is the uncertainty or lack of confidence that might be at the forefront for them. So a lot of empathy over the years in having been in that situation myself.

Teri Schmidt [00:03:24]:

Yeah, I think that's, that's so key when we can take our own experiences and recognize the struggles and the growth that has been part of that and utilize that to support others.

Andrea Wanerstrand [00:03:35]:

Absolutely, absolutely.

Teri Schmidt [00:03:36]:

Which is actually a great transition because I wanted to go through. You know, you have three a words, authenticity, autonomy and accountability. And as you know, we're, we're doing a series called Beneath the Buzzwords, really to take those words that you hear a lot about on LinkedIn. And you know, all leaders feel like they should know exactly what they mean and exactly how to implement them and kind of going a little bit deeper to what makes implementing those words or adhering to those words a little bit difficult. And so as we think about authenticity, it's a word that we hear constantly, but in practice it can be really messy. And I wonder how you found that and if you even have a story, you know, from your work with a leader where they discovered that showing up authentically required them to confront something uncomfortable within themselves.

Andrea Wanerstrand [00:04:32]:

I have hundreds of stories but to address authenticity. So my A3 is authenticity, autonomy and accountability. And those three have a infinity loop, if you will, in the human aspect within an organization that wants to innovate and accelerate outcomes in today's marketplace and also comes with that agility. Authenticity for a leader is showing up with consistency. There's values aligned between their personal values and the company's values. And they are someone that actually fosters trust. And what I mean by that is when we show up as ourselves rather than with a mask, we're more consistent because in the fake it to make it, the problem is you will fail. And that's when that mask falls off.

Andrea Wanerstrand [00:05:35]:

And people don't know what to expect because you've given them a consistency that was a mask rather than yourself. And Teri, I'm not talking about over sharing here. I'm a big Brene fan of like no faux crying. Vulnerability is important, but you don't have to over share and you have to share in context, but it's consistency of how you respond, how you interact with others, how you like set expectations and then hold others accountable. And that is important because you have to have the right mindset. And that's where for another part of our conversation, the mindset maven method that I implemented is really important so that you can stay balanced and be able to come in in a consistent manner so that people know whether you're how even keeled you're going to be over time. Rather, is she going to get upset about this or not upset about this and how they can navigate. So authenticity is based in consistency and values alignment.

Teri Schmidt [00:06:44]:

I wonder, in your experience, has the issue of like psychological safety come into play in concert with authenticity? Because I know, you know, for some people, a certain workplace or a certain context, they may not feel safe being authentic. What would you say about that?

Andrea Wanerstrand [00:07:09]:

Yeah. So the tone starts with you as a leader. There's greater organizational culture that may or may not be aligned with your values, but the shadow that you cast as a leader or as a colleague and living within your own values with consistency, honesty, reliability. There's a lot of great adjectives that we can put out there. And if you can look yourself in the mirror at the end of the day and say I was true to myself, it doesn't again mean oversharing. It doesn't mean like blatantly confronting everything that's around you. There is, I think, a need for acknowledgement that there are political landscapes in a power dynamic in any organization. In fact, some of the smallest organizations I've seen have had higher political dynamic than I've seen in some of the largest organizations across the globe.

Andrea Wanerstrand [00:08:13]:

So psychological safety, I usually say an environment of trust. I know that you've recently done an episode that was all on psychological safety and I agree with all of the concepts there. But in a day to day environment, do you have consistency in your actions that you've created a trusting environment? And do you trust your team and does your team trust you? And if not, what's the undercurring fear that you have that you can't trust? Are they competent, are they not able to do it? Or do you have a fear of letting go and this starts bleeding into the autonomy and how you set up.

Teri Schmidt [00:08:54]:

So.

Andrea Wanerstrand [00:08:56]:

When you're not authentic and you've got that mask on, people can see that it's a mask and so you don't have psychological safety when you've got that mask up. So it's just more easy to bridge an environment of safety and create that trust when you're authentic.

Teri Schmidt [00:09:20]:

Yeah. So I'm curious what makes authenticity so difficult. You referenced the fake it till you make it and I think there Are a lot of leaders, you know, particularly if maybe this is their first people leadership role, where that inner drive to fake it until you make it is so strong. What, what do you think causes that? And how can leaders start overcoming that?

Andrea Wanerstrand [00:09:50]:

There's a cycle of our comfort zone, and when we're out of our comfort zone, we want to put up a mask and pretend that we're there and we want to be comfortable, but there's no certainty. Every day we as humans are fed uncertainty and that puts us in fight or flight because we go into protective mode and you know, you're sitting longer at the light than you anticipated and you can't get to the next appointment on time or somebody says that they're moving a decision to another time or, or somebody, you know, resigns from the team or you find out there's a reorg. That uncertainty that's floating around us, we want to be seen in a certain light. We want to be liked, we want to be accepted, we want to be recognized. And there's a variety of adjectives for that as well. But the hard part is understanding when we're outside of our comfort zone, how to still be ourselves in that moment. And that vulnerability that's at play, that doesn't have to release all of the emotions that you're feeling because emotions are electrically charged. You've got a good belly laugh.

Andrea Wanerstrand [00:11:08]:

Stop laughing. That's that emotion getting up. You've got nervousness. You're going to have some tells in your body of tightening of your shoulders, heartbeat going higher. Maybe you flush a little bit on your, your neck or your voice, intonation changes. So what's hard about being authentic is getting comfortable in the uncomfortable aspect when we face uncertainty in an unknown and being able to navigate that. I often say the journey to confidence is to the level of I'm confident that no matter what I'm thrown at, I will navigate through it. Not necessarily perfectly, but I will get through it and I can count on that.

Andrea Wanerstrand [00:11:56]:

But confidence is a never ending cycle because we're always being pushed out of our comfort zone anytime we're entering something new.

Teri Schmidt [00:12:06]:

Yeah, that's a great point and something to aim for in terms of confidence. It's not you're confident doing every single skill, but you're confident doing that you will be able to navigate that. I love that you started talking a little bit about autonomy, so why don't we go there next? It often gets oversimplified. I think people say I give my team autonomy and it's thought of, well, Basically, I gave them the project, threw it in their lap and we're done with it. But I know that you have a much deeper meaning of autonomy and some practices that align with that. So I'd love to hear from your perspective perspective what autonomy looks like and what does it take for a leader to truly give autonomy, especially when their own reputation is on the line?

Andrea Wanerstrand [00:13:01]:

Well, absolutely. So one of the largest shifts we have when we move into people management is we are now part of our job description getting things done through others. We're not doing it ourselves. And so when we're doing things through others, we have to set expectations. And just because you told them doesn't mean what you told them is what they heard. I often talk about how do you validate those expectations? And there's a full process around validating your expectations. But to back it up a little bit, autonomy is not abandonment. It's not that I gave it to them or I told them that that they're autonomous and they need to handle it.

Andrea Wanerstrand [00:13:50]:

Have you actually set the environment in the culture to create that autonomy? That is, do they have an expectation that for every step they have to come back and check with you? That's not autonomy, that's just stepped back direction. And are you able to set expectation, hold them accountable in a way that allows you to oversight, but not micromanage it? Have you educated them on what autonomy means? And so we often say, yeah, you're empowered or you're autonomous, but then we want to have them check on every step with us. Don't pass go until you get approval. Have you thought about doing it this way? And start prescribing A through Z as to what they're to do rather than moving to support function and being of service to them in a support function of what's your thinking on this? Now that we're clear on where we need to go with it, what are your thoughts on how you're going to do that? And then simply get curious and listen and you can help course correct and you can say, great, now you can move into accountability because they've just told you how they're going to do it and you're either validating or you're course correcting and go, great. How should we keep abreast of status on this going moving forward? What are some milestones? What are we going to do? And then they come up with the well, let's check back in another two weeks and I'll give you an update on this. Great, two weeks come out from now and Everything they said they were going to do, they've either done or they haven't. And then it was their idea to begin with. So you can hold them accountable versus if you direct everything, you don't have autonomy and you want them to have accountability, but it's the accountability of what you said needed to be done versus what they've agreed to get done.

Teri Schmidt [00:15:51]:

Yeah, I love that process and the integration of the curiosity as opposed to just repeat back to me what I just told you you're going to do and how you're going to do it. Especially, you know, when leaders might have the urge to hold onto things themselves because they're so used to being the person who gets things done. What advice do you have for them to move toward the approach that you were just describing?

Andrea Wanerstrand [00:16:22]:

Get curious in the aspect. What if they have a different and better way? We always tend to think, well, I'm experienced at this, I executed this for years. I know the way. And in today's work environment, things are changing so often. So while there's great wisdom and truth to that, there also could be faster ways to do standard operating procedures or get client info. And you want to spark innovation and creativity if you're prescribing it versus describing it. So here's the end state I'd love us to get to versus prescribing how you're going to get there. You're allowing for innovation in your team.

Andrea Wanerstrand [00:17:11]:

You're allowing for new ways to come forth that can optimize. That doesn't mean just put them out on their own and they're free, willing, and could do it any way you want. Set the expectations of what does quality look like, what does good look like? Because again, as leader, you're moving from the executor of tasks and deliverables to moving to getting things done through others. That's the role of people manager.

Teri Schmidt [00:17:43]:

I've had different conversations with different guests about autonomy on the podcast. One that comes to mind is with Urs Koenig of Humble Leadership. And one of the things he was talking about is how giving people autonomy, even though it seems like it could be a slower process, actually increases the efficiency of an organization. And I think I've heard you talk about how implementing this keeps your team from being too over dependent on you, so that you're, in a sense, kind of a block in the process. So I'd love to hear about how you've seen that happen with some of the leaders you've worked with in that, you know, taking this extra Time to go through this process up front has really helped them to increase their efficiency of their team in the long run.

Andrea Wanerstrand [00:18:37]:

Yeah. And we think that it is extra time up front. But if you have to keep revisiting the conversation. I met with a leader that I coach just a week ago even, and they're like, out of my leadership team. I've got this one person, and I keep. They're complaining how many meetings I'm having, but I need to understand that they understand. So. And every time we get together, he just doesn't seem to get it.

Andrea Wanerstrand [00:19:05]:

And I'm like, well, have you validated that he's hearing what you think you've said? And that was like, I don't. I. I don't know. And have he. He's like, I. I know he knows the answer. I know he knows how to do this. Him and his team are brilliant.

Andrea Wanerstrand [00:19:23]:

They've done these things before. I go, but does he feel he needs your approval every time he's coming to you? And they had to really think about that. And they're going, well, yeah. So the onus isn't completely on the employee. Are we setting up an environment where they're coming to us? We're getting frustrated because they keep coming to us and expecting us to give them the answer. But we've set that expectation to begin with. So, yes, that becomes overdependence on you. For another client, a VP in an organization who really at that level should be like, everything should be going through the team.

Andrea Wanerstrand [00:20:08]:

And. And folks were coming to her for tactical things. She goes, I just don't get it. Why are they doing that? And I go, well, how much do you trust your team? Well, I trust them. I was like, do you trust them with all the details? Well, sometimes they don't get it. All right, okay. Do you critique them at that point? They don't want to get critiqued, so they're coming back to you. That's another example.

Andrea Wanerstrand [00:20:32]:

Sometimes it's us helping them out. Sometimes it's a direct consequence of something that they don't want to have happen. So they're coming to you. And again, we're creating a beast of our own.

Teri Schmidt [00:20:45]:

Yeah.

Andrea Wanerstrand [00:20:46]:

When. If we simply step back and set the expectation, here's what we're going to achieve. Here's what I think good looks like. Now let's walk through how you think you're going to achieve this. And then even asking, what do you need from me in order to achieve that? You don't have to agree to what they ask for and then, okay, how will we know we're getting there and when should we check in that that's occurring?

Teri Schmidt [00:21:17]:

And I appreciate, you know, I hear in your answer to the mindset that is necessary to do that in an effective way, the validation process, it's not. I'm asking you, how are you going to do it? So I can test if your answer matches my answer perfectly. If not, you know I'm going to change it. Obviously. Yes, as you mentioned, there's some course correction at times, but it's not just a quiz. It really is a curiosity of how, how do you plan to go about it?

Andrea Wanerstrand [00:21:48]:

Yes. And it's a collaboration. So there are times when you do need to be directive and you need to teach them. Maybe they don't understand something, it's new to them. So if you're like throwing it completely in their plate and oh, I give it to them, well, you're not setting them up for success. So what do you need to do to set them up for success so that they can actually achieve it? And when you do that, you create through true autonomy, you create ownership. You look at companies like Bear who quote, got rid of their middle managers. And what they're doing though, is trying to create ownership of the accountability area for each individual across the organization.

Andrea Wanerstrand [00:22:41]:

And so what you see there from a behavior perspective is how do you run your portion, your role, as if it's even a micro business within the larger business. And when you create ownership, people start thinking of things a little differently than I'm doing this because, you know, Mary told me I'm supposed to do this step.

Teri Schmidt [00:23:06]:

Yeah, becomes much more, much more meaningful and they take much more, like you said, ownership of it. Well, onto the accountability. I know we again started talking about it a little bit already, but I would say it's probably one of the most talked about practices in, in leadership, but perhaps one of the least consistently applied. Because I think leaders get in kind of a pendulum where they go to one, one side or the other, and sometimes, you know, they may mistake accountability for what is actually micromanagement. So can you share an example again of a leader you've worked with who moved from seeing accountability as punishment to accountability as a pathway to growth?

Andrea Wanerstrand [00:23:51]:

Well, I ran the performance management programs both at Microsoft and T Mobile, so I've seen the good, the bad and the ugly. And the ugly generally has lots of surprises. People didn't know what the expectations were. Everybody waits until that last moment to give feedback. So timely feedback in the moment, in the flow of Work of feedback both always constructive to encourage continuation of great behavior or move something from good to great or identifying development opportunities of how things could be done different next time is critical for saving yourself from the dreaded accountability or annual performance discussion or quarterly Whenever the rhythm of the business is for where you you work and what's important in that comes back to that autonomy. Did you set expectations? And when they're more invested and involved. Notice I didn't say engaged. Right.

Andrea Wanerstrand [00:25:00]:

But when they're more invested and involved in the outcomes that they're doing are of some of their own creation regarding the path forward, that accountability is more ingrained. They have more of that ownership. I said this would be the way forward. Now it. And then what do you do when they either get it right, you should be celebrating that account with accountability or if you're noticing things are going awry on the agreed upon check in points you course correct and if everything goes sideways, how do you turn that into learning? So if you're able to do that all in the moment of the business, whether you're a salesperson out on a sales call with what somebody on your sales team or you watched a great customer interaction with somebody on your front line, or whether you're seeing some great thought leadership from a junior member as an example in a strategy session, acknowledging that and giving them the credit is a good way to practice the upside of accountability. And then I often say be kind over being nice. What I mean by that is a kind leader steps in and has the courage to say the hard constructive thing that's going to move that individual forward in growth and the organization forward. A nice leader.

Andrea Wanerstrand [00:26:45]:

It's all about you. When you're trying to be a nice leader, they're going to like me. Is this going to be comfortable? Is this going to be uncomfortable? So as you're giving that feedback and as you're holding them accountable, check in with yourself. Are you making it about you or are you making it about them and the organization and what needs to be achieved and keep yourself in that kind zone?

Teri Schmidt [00:27:07]:

Definitely, definitely. Yeah. I use that distinction quite frequently. Talk about how, you know, being nice is about keeping everyone comfortable, yourself and the other person. Being kind is sharing what is really needed for growth.

Andrea Wanerstrand [00:27:23]:

Absolutely, absolutely. And so when we do all of that, accountability just becomes part of what we do. And it's not just a manager to employee perspective. It's peer to peer, you to client following through being known for somebody that's reliable and honest and has ownership and admits when they didn't get it. All right. That is the infinity loop for authenticity. How you show up in that moment when you're holding others accountable, that makes all the differences to whether you have trust and whether you're going to achieve the goals of the organization and as individuals.

Teri Schmidt [00:28:11]:

I love how that wraps right back around there. Before we move on to a couple of closing questions I do have to ask. I'm intrigued that you intentionally say engaged and you, you pointed that out. Tell me a little bit more about that.

Andrea Wanerstrand [00:28:28]:

There's a lot of conversation about employee engagement, everything from quiet quitting, etc. And you can tell if people are in the act of being engaged, if they're taking ownership, if they take things seriously, if they really want to have banter, and if they're not engaged, it's not necessarily about that individual. It could be about the culture and the environment. You talked about psychological safety. Is it okay to talk about the elephant that's in the room? Is there going to be consequences for bringing up the elephant in the room? So engagement to me is more on the organization than it is on the individual. And so that's where I don't bring it in, into the dynamic of the conversation between you and another. Yeah, because they can look engaged. I mean, when you're on a teams call or sitting across from each other, you are looking at each other, you are engaging.

Andrea Wanerstrand [00:29:43]:

Right. That doesn't mean they're engaged as an employee. And I leave that as a different topic.

Teri Schmidt [00:29:49]:

Yeah, very true, very true. Thanks for that clarification and explanation. Let's, let's talk about it big scale as, as we get closer to the end of our time today. So when you have these three A's, when they're alive and a leader, how does the culture shift?

Andrea Wanerstrand [00:30:12]:

People fail fast. Right. So that's a learning culture. And with today's environment, especially with AI and the smallness of the world, the Internet and everything that it's done in the last 20 some odd years for us connects people and moves people faster and faster. So the ability to really accelerate and be agile and fail fast and learn from it all while keeping out of toxic habits that can create a toxic culture so that people don't burn out and have physical consequence to the stress of the environment. When I've seen teams at the highest performing, the A3 were there. And that's part of why from my years of work I derived what are the top three things that are the difference between even within a large company, the subcultures, the difference that I, I see in Between a very high performing team that has the same resources, same budget, same, you know, infrastructure, same level of talent, and one that doesn't succeed, it's the A3.

Teri Schmidt [00:31:45]:

Yeah. That's very, very powerful. And I, you know, if there's a leader listening today and want, they want to take, you know, one step this week you mentioned the Infinity Loop. So I wonder if it starts with authenticity, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on, you know, what, what would be one courageous step they could take this week to get started improving the A3.

Andrea Wanerstrand [00:32:13]:

Ask yourself, because you can only influence and you have control over how you show up. So ask yourself, how do I want to make people feel after they interact with me? They're going to remember how you made them feel, not how, what you said in that moment. So how do you want them to feel in order to get the outcome of any interaction that you have? And it can be as simple as a pause just a few moments before you go into any interaction with a big, deep breath to help reset your nervous system and ask yourself how you want to make them feel and then set your intention of you're going to show up in a way that actually can make that come true.

Teri Schmidt [00:33:02]:

That's beautiful and so simple and something that is easy to start right away. So I hope all our leaders out there will take that to heart and take that first step this week. So I've really enjoyed our conversation. If a listener wants to learn more about you and your work, where's the best place for them to go?

Andrea Wanerstrand [00:33:25]:

You can find more about what I'm doing on a regular basis on LinkedIn, on my profile for Andrea Wannerstrand. You can also find out more about my speaking and workshop information on a3culturelab.com and a few times a year, I run a cohort called the Mindset Maven Lab. Free Lab. It's the Mindset Maven method. And you can find set maven.com Excellent.

Teri Schmidt [00:33:55]:

Well, thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it and enjoyed our conversation.

Andrea Wanerstrand [00:34:01]:

Oh, so did I. Teri, thank you for having me. I love the great work you and the team are doing and I think the world needs more of the messages that you're bringing forth on this podcast, so thank you.