Erica: Hey, girl. By now, you know I have Her Collective, my online community for ambitious women who are done doing it alone. Her Collective is for the women who are smart, capable, and driven, but they find themselves stuck on the sticky floors like self doubt, burnout, and waiting for permission that quite honestly never comes. Inside HER, you get more than motivation. You get real support, real strategies, and real momentum.

Erica: We work on things like clarifying what you want now and what's coming next, building confidence without burning yourself out, navigating hard conversations, career moves, and leadership moments with clarity, and surrounding yourself with women who actually get it. This isn't about hustling harder. It's about moving intentionally with the right tools and the right people in your corner. If you're ready to stop spinning, start choosing yourself, and build a career in life that actually feels aligned, I'd love to welcome you inside her collective. You can learn more and join us at www.joinhercollective.com.

Erica: Because honestly, girl, you were never meant to do this alone. Welcome to the Glass Ceiling and Sticky Floor podcast, the podcast where we get real about the challenges women face in work, life, and leadership. I'm your host, Erica Rooney, HR executive keynote speaker and executive coach, and I'm on a mission to get more women into positions of power and keep them there. This is the space where we call out the paradoxes, being told to lean in but not too far, to speak up but not too loudly, be ambitious but not too ambitious. Does that sound familiar?

Erica: Yeah. We're over that. We are here to break down the sticky floors that keep us stuck, from imposter syndrome and perfectionism to burnout and fear, and give you real strategies to shatter those glass ceilings once and for all. So if you're ready to rewrite the rules, own your power, and take your career to the next level, you're in the right place. Now you are in for a serious treat today because my guest, she's not just your average leadership coach, y'all.

Erica: Andrea Wanerstrand is a powerhouse behind A3 CultureLab, and she is on a mission to make work feel more human. Now I'm talking about real leadership, the kind that is built on authenticity, autonomy, and accountability. She has spent over two decades helping companies like Microsoft and T-Mobile ditch the robotic, check-the-box culture, and build teams that actually thrive. Now she's not just teaching empathy. She has built an entire coaching program that scales across global organizations.

Erica: She's a Harvard McLean Fellow, a former board leader with the International Coaching Federation, and a total culture geek, and I mean that in the best possible way. Oh, and when she's not transforming corporate leadership, y'all, she's out there growing lavender and cruising on all of the seas on a Nordic tugboat. Okay? So trust me when I tell you she's pretty cool. So, Andrea, how are you today?

Erica: Welcome to the podcast.

Andrea: Oh, Erica, it's great to be here. I cannot wait for this discussion. I've been looking forward to it.

Erica: Andrea, you have worked with some massive companies like Microsoft and T-Mobile. What made you decide to step out and create something that was totally on your own?

Andrea: I have always been an entrepreneur at heart. I think I fit in but didn't fit in in the corporate culture. I've been circling this planet for long enough that I remember the .com age. And so I'd worked in some startups.

Andrea: And so it was more, if not now, then when. After having a nice long ride at Microsoft and some other companies, I did a brief stint at Meta, and at that point I'm like, you know, it's time for a change. So we bought the lavender farm, and I had some health issues from some burnout, and I was like, let's do something different. And I also wanted to trade my position for a mission, if you will.

Andrea: I really wanted to focus on my passion area of making cultures where people can be authentic. And I'm not talking oversharing vulnerable authentic, but just truly be consistent and have autonomy and be able to achieve their goals. So I broke out on my own and I'm doing this.

Erica: I would love to talk about your burnout a little if you don't mind, because the listeners here, we are no stranger to burnout. And what I have found is that nobody's burnout story is the same. So I'd love to know, how did it show up for you? Did you even realize that you were being burnt out? And what was that turning point for you where you were like, okay, enough is enough.

Andrea: Yeah. My health was just going down the drain. I had nonstop insomnia. I had the brain ticking, the weight gain, no matter what diet I was on. Working for multinationals, it was a twenty-four hour clock anyways for a lot of the work I was doing with leaders across the globe.

Andrea: And I'm a go-getter. I just wanna achieve. I wanna do more. And putting boundaries and saying no was not something I felt empowered to do. And in 2017, I landed myself in the hospital.

Andrea: So I've done the burnout to the extreme. And I was starting to get there again in 2021. And so that's when I decided I had to do something different. And different was really claiming me and who I was, not my identity from a role or a badge, but me. And what did I want?

Andrea: What were my values? And how could that be of service to myself and my family and those around me?

Erica: Alright. Well, that really resonated with me because I too am one of those go-getters, very ambitious, always chasing the title, the pay, the next step. And I would love to hear from you. How are you able to, I don't wanna say quiet that part because I love that part of me. Right?

Erica: Like, that's the part of me that started my own business and that has made it as successful as it is. But I know that that part of me also kinda needs to be contained a little, told to quiet down from time to time when I wanna take on too much. How do you do that?

Andrea: I took on meditation to help with my insomnia. And this idea that meditation is clearing your mind is a fallacy. It's not clearing your mind. It's actually just organizing all my thoughts. And random things come up to me in my daily meditation practice, and I'm like, okay, that's kinda weird, I'm planning next year's birthday party for my niece or whatever. And it's that brain clutter, so that I can get out of my thinking brain and get into my heart brain and my gut brain.

Andrea: So we have three brains. We have neurons in our gut center, our heart, and our head. And for me, it's where is this coming from? Is it out of a limiting belief that if I don't do more, I'm not good enough? Or is this really in alignment?

Andrea: And so really just checking in with myself and understanding what's the driver, who's this in service to. I mean, it sounds trite, but am I just doing this because it's on the should-do list? Or am I doing this because it's something that's gonna add value, add impact to my life or someone else's?

Erica: Yeah. I definitely did a lot of things because they were on my should list. And I know for me, when I really peeled back that onion, the reason why I was so ambitious and so focused on the roles and the titles and things like that was because growing up, those were the things that always got praise and love, and I couldn't make anybody happy without that. And so I really had to just pull that apart and recognize that that doesn't need to be a part of it anymore.

Erica: But it's so fascinating, and I just thank you for sharing the burnout piece of it, especially the two-time burnout visitor here, because if we don't pay attention to it and we just slap Band-Aids on it, it does rear its ugly head again. But one thing that I wanna dive into is you talk a lot about building human-centric cultures. And I love that phrase. But what does that actually look like on a Tuesday afternoon when the world has gone crazy and it's a dumpster fire?

Andrea: Yeah. Culture to me at its essence is based in the how. It's how work gets done, how leaders make others feel, how small mistakes are addressed, and how much trust is there really. Because you're talking about the shit show on a Tuesday afternoon.

Andrea: And if you're amongst those that you trust, that you know everyone has best intention, there is kindness over niceness, and this is where the courageous truths come out versus skipping the top and trying to keep shallow just to keep the peace. But there's a real depth to the conversation about how are we all in this together and how do we make it better. That's the difference to me in a human-centric culture. If we're all skittering around trying to be nice and not addressing the elephant in the room, that's when stress soars for everyone. So that to me is really looking at the how.

Erica: And not only does it do that, but it just completely erodes the psychological safety over time, even the smallest of things. I'm actually leading a group in the coming weeks on a topic that I call the undiscussables. And we do a lot of prework where we collect a lot of anonymous feedback, but we bring to the table all of those little things, the undercurrents, the fact that Bob's always five minutes late to the meeting, the little things that don't feel like a big thing but over time add up and really impact the culture. And I think more organizations need to do that. And I also think that more women need to do that with their families.

Erica: How often do we tolerate these small things that are going on in our households and in our relationships with our partners and our friends when we should just be addressing it head on and be kind, not just nice. So I don't know. What are your thoughts on that?

Andrea: Yeah. You've hit on it. This aspect of being kind, the key distinction for me is that kindness is rooted in courage and care. It's looking at what's truly beneficial, and it's looking at the well-being.

Erica: Hey there, listeners. If you have ever felt like you're stuck in a place, held back by self doubt, perfectionism, or that pesky inner critic, you're not alone. We all face those sticky floors that keep us from reaching the heights we dream of. But guess what? It's time to shatter those limiting beliefs and toxic behaviors to uncover infinite possibilities.

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Andrea: Nice is really avoiding the conflict. They prioritize short-term harmony, and you gotta keep it real and address the issues that are there, and you hit on a couple of them. They can be in the micro moments. It's a form of disrespect. A leader shows up late for a meeting because the last one ran long.

Andrea: So the whole squad is sitting there waiting for them to come in the room, whether it's online or in person, and then they go long again. So they've actually disrespected the team on two ends. They don't care that they're late, and everyone's twiddling their thumbs waiting for them to come in, and they don't care that they're keeping them from their next destination, whatever that might be, family, friends, work colleagues. And so it's a form of disrespect.

Andrea: And that is just a symptom of what's going on in a nonhuman-centric culture.

Erica: Yes. And you talk a lot about your big three, the authenticity, autonomy, and accountability. Why those three, first of all, and how can leaders tell if maybe they're missing the mark on one of them?

Andrea: The authenticity is really getting you to a state where it's you, it's your personality, it's who you are. There is the concept of multiplicity. Part of me wants to do this, part of me wants to do that. But there is no work me and home me. It's just me.

Andrea: So if you think you check your emotions at the door regarding anything in your personal life when you walk into work, your body and your nervous system will call BS on that. So the authenticity is being yourself in a way that is consistent. It's easier in the long run because when we're putting on the facade, the work mask, the professional woman we think we're supposed to be, it doesn't create real trust because at some level people know it's a mask, and we're not able to consistently have that. Our facial expressions, all these little micro tells our body gives us about emotions brewing, whether it's our voice cracking or being tense or our shoulders or the look on our face, it cracks through.

Andrea: So if you can get to your authentic self, and I'm not talking oversharing, I'm talking about really how do you wanna show up in a consistent way for you and your team. It's easier for you to trust others and others will trust you, which leads to autonomy. You wanna scale in today's environment, being the gatekeeper for every decision and keeping an over-dependent team is not scalable, and it's gonna kill you in the long run. You're gonna go straight to burnout at some point. And then the tricky, wicked one, if you will, is the accountability, that third A.

Andrea: How do you have the kind conversations, the courageous conversations, and hold yourself and others accountable through that autonomy and make sure everybody has great expectations? So in all the companies that I've worked for over the years, when you see the most successful teams, they have these three A's, authenticity in their leadership and each of the team members, accountability, and autonomy. And it's a magic circle, if you will, that if any one of those breaks, then you have a nonhuman-centric culture.

Erica: If you had to pick one of those, where you were like, look, this is the most important thing that you're gonna do, this is what you need to focus on, which one would it be and why?

Andrea: Actually, it's not hard to pick. I would pick authenticity. Because you really can't do the other two in a way that, if you're command and control, you sure you can hold people accountable, but you're probably not creating a trusting environment.

Andrea: Our HR friends like to call it psychological safety. And you're not really empowering them for growth. You're micromanaging them. So if you can start with yourself and be honest with yourself and deal with any limiting beliefs or imposter syndrome you have about who you are as a leader in the organization, who you are as a human, then everything else can fall into place.

Andrea: But if you start with autonomy, many companies go, I've empowered my team. No, you haven't. It's a prescription and you're saying it, or you haven't taught them to be autonomous because for decades you've taught them to be dependent on getting approval for every micro movement they make.

Erica: So I can say that I do see that happening as an ex chief people officer. That is what I see happening every day. Just people think they're being autonomous and that they're giving people choice, but they're not.

Erica: They're saying, here's your exact process, make sure you follow it to a T, and if you don't, I'm gonna slap you with a PIP.

Andrea: 100%. And so for me, it all comes down to you. It starts with you.

Erica: It starts with you. Where do you feel, in your work, that you're seeing women struggle the most when it comes to these three?

Andrea: I would say in being authentic and dealing with our emotions at work. I think it's getting better, but there's still, what do they say, there's six generations in the workplace now. So our emotions are our superpower, but they can also be our demise.

Andrea: So that emotional awareness, and we generally, typically, women feel the emotions or have an awareness of the emotions a bit more than our male counterparts. And how do we manage those emotions? How do we manage the physical effects of the emotions? If your gut is getting churned or your shoulders are getting tense, what are you doing to reset your nervous system to be able to move that forward? So emotional awareness, we all need.

Andrea: I think for us as women, there are stereotypes about us being too emotional, like you said in the intro, too much.

Erica: Right.

Andrea: And while I think we need to change that perception so that people can be just them and not have to shrink themselves, I think women struggle with all of that more in the workplace than our male counterparts.

Erica: I would absolutely agree. And as someone that is an angry crier, when I get really mad, it's because I care, and that is where the tears come from. And over the years, I've been able to kinda figure out how to just take a breath and refocus my energies to stay calm enough to get through the situation. But what would be your advice to someone who's listening who does struggle when their emotions take over that physically, things happen to them?

Andrea: Well, first and foremost, our emotions are electrically charged. We are electrical beings. They wanna get out.

Andrea: And a lot of folks think of the cry, but also a good belly laugh. Have you ever had a great belly laugh and you just can't stop laughing? I see this in dogs and cats too.

Andrea: They shake it off. They literally are resetting themselves physically. And so if we can recognize our own body's signals of tension, and tension in a good way with the laughter and you're just not able to contain the giggles, or in the anger, stress, frustration, whatever other emotion, find a moment where you can actually just reset. And the simplest one is to pause before you go into any interaction, whether it's an in-person meeting or online. Take two minutes.

Andrea: Literally, it could be done in two minutes. Take a deep breath in and ask yourself, how do I wanna show up for these people? How do I wanna be remembered for how I made them feel in the next few moments?

Erica: I'm gonna game it out with this. I wanna walk you through a real life situation that happened for me, and I really struggled with it. This was several years ago, and I'm walking into an office, and my head space is, I'm gonna go to this meeting and they're gonna tell me I got the job I interviewed for, because there's no reason they wouldn't. That is how sure I was. And as you already know, just because we're leading with this story here, you know that I didn't get that job. And so walking into that, I did not take time to say, how am I gonna show up for these people, because I was like, you know what, I got this.

Erica: And then boom, I am smacked, blindsided with this information that I didn't get the job. And, of course, immediate gut clenching, heart racing, I can feel that panic rising up in my throat. What do you do in that moment to keep it all together so that you can then run out to your car and just fall apart?

Andrea: Is it fair to say that you felt like you nailed it and there was an assumption on your part that it's gonna be yours?

Erica: Absolutely.

Andrea: So I am a huge fan of The Four Agreements. If you haven't read it, it's one of my favorite books out there by Don Miguel Ruiz. It has over a hundred thousand five-star reviews on Amazon. And I've read it like twenty years ago now, but I think it's been the last decade where it sunk in. And the four agreements are, be impeccable with your word, don't take anything personally, don't make assumptions, and do your best.

Andrea: Not be the best, but do the best in that moment. So for you in that moment, if we could have rewound and I were coaching you before going into it, let's eliminate some assumptions, because a decision hasn't been announced. So it really had odds that it could go another way. You were hoping. And also, since you got into that meeting, what's your best in that moment?

Andrea: And give yourself the grace and the compassion. This is not about doing it perfectly. Our self awareness is a journey. And you probably, I'd bet, learned a lot about yourself in that moment.

Erica: Oh, absolutely. 100%.

Andrea: And so that's just part of your self awareness journey. In hindsight, what are your woulda-shoulda-couldas before you went into that meeting?

Erica: Yeah. I really should have reminded myself that it wasn't a done deal and there were no agreements signed, and I think that's still something that I sometimes struggle with. I'm this eternal optimist, and I just assume things are gonna go my way sometimes. And I need to remind myself that until the ink is signed, it's not a done deal.

Andrea: Yeah. And that, what do they say, assume makes an ass of you and me. It's what gets us every time. So in that moment, or any moment that comes up and blindsides us, first of all, don't forget to breathe. That's the most important thing we do as humans, and it sounds trite, but it's really the truth. Listen and absorb it and just feel the emotion. But you don't have to share the emotion.

Andrea: If it's not a psychologically safe or trusting environment, don't do that. Get yourself out of dodge as quickly as possible so that you can actually have the meltdown, have the emotion, get it all out, and find a good friend to talk to. But do your best in any situation. And you'll catch yourself. You probably start knowing the signals of when your body's tensing up, or let's face it.

Andrea: We know when we've shown up too intense and we didn't say it in a way that we wish we could've. So just own it. There's not a magic do-this-instead-and-feel-this-way. It's travel through it and find out what lesson's in there for you.

Andrea: And you did the best, and have that self compassion.

Erica: You know what I find so interesting is just reflecting in this real time with you, I cannot remember for the life of me how I actually reacted. I don't remember what I said. I just remember how I felt in that moment.

Erica: And we always talk about this. People won't remember what you said, but they'll remember how you felt, and a hundred percent. But I say that from the perspective of, I probably didn't react in the most perfect way that I should have and in the way that I would today, but I don't think that it matters. Like, I did the best I could in the situation that I was in with what I prepared myself for or didn't prepare myself for.

Erica: So I think I just share that to say, hey, if you're listening and you're like, nope, I'm a disaster zone, this is how it is, don't worry about it. You're not even gonna remember that ten years in the future.

Andrea: No. And what's the saying, is this really gonna matter in five months, or five years from now? Probably not. And things happen for a reason.

Andrea: You might go to some place that you think is the dream job, and a few weeks into it you're like, oh, what did I do? Been there. I did that.

Erica: I say it all the time that hindsight is a gift that we will all have one day. Today just isn't that day.

Andrea: Yeah. And we go through the, why didn't I see this coming, why didn't I know this, I should have known better. I did all my diligence. I did this, I did that. And it's giving ourselves what we tell ourselves to give everybody else, that self compassion and empathy. I did the best I could with what I had.

Erica: I do wanna talk about empathy a bit because this is a big piece of your work. And when you think about authenticity and accountability, and really being a leader, I see in my work that some people struggle to balance empathy and authority. And so I wanna know, do you see that, and if yes, what advice would you give people who do struggle to balance those two?

Andrea: Yeah. I think I've seen leaders, especially in some smaller companies, but I've also seen this in the big companies, where they want everybody to feel like family. I don't go to work to get family. If I like you and I end up with a lifelong friendship, that's a bonus.

Andrea: That's really cool. And so empathy in the workplace is, first and foremost, just treating them like a human being. And when I was at Microsoft, they had the manager expectations model of model, coach, and care. And this care part, people like, what does that mean?

Andrea: Do I throw parties? And it's like, no. Simply treat them as a human being. But there's also the business reality. We're hired to do a job.

Andrea: We're hired to get an outcome, generally to make money, or if it's a nonprofit, to be able to move the mission forward. And if we're in a leadership position, we have to hold others accountable for delivering that. And yes, we can have empathy for what's going on, and I think the world is more empathetic in many ways coming out of COVID than we were before. But it's not the same as how you're caring for your family.

Andrea: And that distinction of treating people as a human, respect, kindness, being truthful, and giving some leeway for the situation within whatever HR boundaries you have is in your toolkit. So use your tools in your quiver to be able to execute with empathy, but you gotta start with curiosity about folks. Don't make those assumptions. What's going on with them?

Erica: Oh, but it's so easy to make assumptions, and we all do it. So give yourself grace when you do.

Andrea: True. We just wanna fill in the blank of the story.

Erica: And make it make sense. Exactly. But, Andrea, if you could go back in time to 2017, and then again when you went to Burnout City in 2021, knowing all that you know now, what piece of advice would you give that Andrea?

Andrea: You're good enough. You're good enough. And if empathy doesn't start with yourself, it's really hard to authentically give it to others.

Erica: Amen. Two snaps for that. If you cannot be empathetic towards yourself, you will not be able to truly be empathetic to others. That says it all. Oh my gosh.

Erica: Andrea, if people wanna work with you, if they wanna learn more about your Culture Lab and what you're doing, how can they find you?

Andrea: One of the best places to reach me is on LinkedIn. I'm pretty active on the platform, as well as at a3culturelab.com, which I'm sure we'll have in the show notes.

Erica: Yes, we will. We're gonna link it all in the show notes. Thank you so much for joining us here on the podcast today. If today's conversation lit a fire under you, this is your next move.

Erica: Don't keep it to yourself. Share it with a friend, drop a review, and let's keep the conversation going. Remember, your potential is limitless, and the only thing standing in your way are those sticky floors. But guess what?

Erica: You have the power to break through them. So go out there, take up some space, and let's shatter some ceilings together. Alright. Have a good one.