March 10, 2026
Episode 178: Manage Yourself: Why Great Teams Start with You with Margaret C. Andrews
What if the secret to better teamwork isn’t another strategy, framework, or offsite – but first understanding yourself? In this episode of The Future of Teamwork, Dane Groeneveld interviews Margaret Andrews, Harvard instructor, author of Manage Yourself to Lead Others: Why Great Leadership Begins with Self-Understanding, and founder of The MYLO Center, a leadership education and professional development firm. Together, they explore a simple but profound idea: before you can lead others well, you have to understand and manage yourself.
Margaret shares how her work began from her own “bad management” wake-up call. What followed was nearly two decades of research, teaching, and executive education focused on self-awareness, emotional regulation, and the interpersonal skills that truly differentiate great leaders.
Margaret then explains what separates high-performing teams from mediocre ones, what leadership attribute consistently outweighs IQ and technical skill, and how feedback can be used to build more effective teams.
If you’ve ever been on a dysfunctional team and vowed “never again,” or experienced a truly great team and spent years trying to recreate it, this conversation will resonate.
Manage Yourself: Why Great Teams Start with You with Margaret C. Andrews
Guest Bio
Margaret C. Andrews is a seasoned executive, academic leader, speaker, and instructor. She has created and teaches a variety of leadership courses and professional and executive programs at Harvard University and is the founder of the MYLO Center, a private leadership development firm. Her clients include Amazon, Citi, Continental, Walmart, Wayfair, and the United Nations. She lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.
Key Takeaways
00:00 Welcome to the Future of Teamwork Podcast
00:02 Meet Margaret Andrews
00:34 A Leadership Lesson From Bad Management
02:35 Why Teamwork Starts With Self-Awareness
04:12 Leadership Is Dynamic Because People Are
05:16 Managing vs. Leading
07:53 Leadership Is Contextual
09:47 Why Interpersonal Skills Matter Most
13:08 Inside Manage Yourself to Lead Others
15:41 When Leaders Recognize Themselves in the Problem
17:17 Fear, Anxiety, and the Search for Better Teams
19:16 What Makes Teams Work (and Fail)
21:23 Defining the Real Problem
23:44 The Challenge of Honest Conversations
25:38 Why Feeling Valued Matters
27:08 The Myth of Generational Differences
29:08 AI, Leadership, and Judgment
33:27 Efficiency vs. Effectiveness
34:48 The Social Glue of Teams
36:35 Building Connection Inside Teams
40:00 Trust and the “Marbles in the Jar”
43:28 Why Leadership Starts With Managing Yourself
44:57 Creating a Ripple Effect in Organizations
48:00 Where to Find Margaret Andrews
48:30 Closing
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