Margaret Andrews on Manage Yourself to Lead Others

Beyond the To-Do List - Productivity for Work and Life

Erik Fisher

Business, Entrepreneurship, Self-improvement, Careers, Education

4.5 • 875 Ratings

🗓️ 27 September 2025

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Margaret Andrews is the founder of Mind and Hand Associates, faculty at Harvard Extension School, and author of Manage Yourself to Lead Others: Why Great Leadership Begins with Self-Understanding. In this episode, she breaks down the MYLO framework—a practical, science-based system built around Motivation, Learning, and Opportunity—and explains how leaders at any level can use it to grow with intention, clarity, and effectiveness.

In this episode, we cover:

What Is MYLO? Margaret introduces the Motivation–Learning–Opportunity triangle and why all three are essential for leadership development.
Motivation Beyond Willpower: We explore how autonomy, relatedness, and competence drive sustainable motivation.
Learning as a Leadership Lever: Why deliberate practice, feedback, and humility are key to developing new skills and perspectives.
The Role of Opportunity in Growth: How stretch assignments, visibility, and support systems create the conditions for leadership advancement.
What Gets in the Way: Margaret explains common blocks to growth—like fixed mindset, poor feedback loops, and misaligned expectations.
The Importance of Intentionality: Why “just doing your job well” isn’t enough if you want to lead or level up.
Feedback That Fuels Development: How to ask for, receive, and act on feedback even when it’s vague, hard to hear, or poorly delivered.
How to Craft a Personal Leadership Development Plan: Using the MYLO framework to assess where you are—and what’s missing.
The Case for Self-Compassion and Curiosity: Margaret shares how these two traits amplify resilience and long-term success.
Applying MYLO at Every Level: Whether you’re an emerging leader or a seasoned executive, this framework gives you a way to stay sharp and self-aware.

Connect with Margaret on LinkedIn here.

Find Manage Yourself to Lead Others: Why Great Leadership Begins with Self-Understanding wherever books are sold.

Connect with Erik:

This Podcast is Powered By:

Make sure to grab Shortcasts from Beyond The To-Do List by Blinkist. A Shortcast is a 7-10 min version of a podcast where you get the core takeaways.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Your first great love story is free when you sign up for a free 30-day trial at audible.co.
0:05.5	That's audible.co.ukesl-wondery. Hello and welcome back to Beyond the To Do List, a podcast about productivity.
0:32.3	I'm your host, Eric Fisher, and in this episode, I'm excited to share a conversation I had with Margaret C. Andrews.
0:38.7	She is the author of the book, Manage Yourself to Lead Others, Why Great Leadership Begins
0:45.0	with Self Understanding. And Margaret is the founder of Mind and Hand Associates. She's on faculty
0:51.5	at the Harvard Extension School. And in this conversation, we're
0:54.5	talking about Milo. And no, that's not M-I-L-O, it's M-Y-L-O. M-Y-L-O. M-O is a framework that's practical,
1:03.0	science-based, built around motivation, learning, and opportunity, and essentially explains how
1:09.1	leaders in any level can use it to grow.
1:11.8	And in this conversation, she's sharing common blocks to that growth, the how and the why
1:17.2	behind self-understanding and what to do with it, how to use that then to lead and manage
1:22.5	upward as well as those around you and be a better leader to those that report to you.
1:27.8	We're talking all about how to get and give feedback, especially when sometimes it might be
1:32.9	hard to hear or it might be vague and how to use that Milo framework to assess where you are
1:39.2	and what's missing and what's next. So if you're looking to grow on purpose, Margaret's Milo
1:43.9	framework will help you
1:45.3	navigate that growth without getting overwhelmed and give you some structure, some spark to move
1:50.6	forward. Well, it is my privilege to welcome to the show Margaret Andrews. Margaret, welcome to
1:58.6	Beyond the To Do List. Oh, thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here.
2:03.0	Yeah. So what's funny is, okay, so you've got a brand new book out. It's called
2:07.7	Manage Yourself to Lead Others. That makes sense. Why great leadership begins with
2:14.7	self-understanding. And you're speaking my language right there.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Erik Fisher, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Erik Fisher and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.