Neurodiversity and Leadership

Data shows that just 31% of people diagnosed with neurodiversity in the UK are employed – but I know that there are far more neurodivergent people who are hiding or ‘masking’ in the workplace, and that you’ll know them, work with them, perhaps even be them, without actually knowing!

What could you do, as business leaders, to remove the barriers neurodivergent people struggle to overcome in their careers, and to better support your neurodiverse employees? It’s no secret that neurodiversity has been widely under-diagnosed – particularly in women and girls, and in minority cultures – so the statistics wildly underestimate how many neurodivergent people are employed – but who are struggling in their role, hiding or masking their needs, and at risk of burnout. Employers who fail to meet these needs, or to support the neurodiverse people in their teams, risk not only discrimination and misconduct cases, but – perhaps more importantly – the loss of the talent, expertise, experience and insight that your neurodivergent people bring to your organisation.

There’s a well-known phrase in neurodivergent circles: “if you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person!” – which is said to remind people not to make assumptions or rely on stereotypes; I can speak about my own experiences and career, and whilst it will mirror some of the experiences, challenges and skills of some other autistic people, it certainly doesn’t reflect every autistic person…

For the sake of brevity, however, I will generalise some of the traits and behaviours that I do share with other autistic people: traits like my ability to focus entirely on a task, to see the fine details, and quickly understand and translate data. I excel at mathematics, at seeing what the numbers and data mean for business strategy, and have laser-focus when a task needs to be completed. I take pride in the standard and detail in my own work, and find it confusing when others don’t ‘see’ what I think is painfully obvious in the data! People often reference my excellent attention to detail, and photographic (or eidetic) memory, which means I only need to see information once to absorb and recall it accurately. I am also able to compartmentalise the different aspects of my work, my life and the requirements on my time and energy, to prioritise and achieve tasks – even in challenging situations.

These are all incredibly useful skills, particularly in the career I’ve had – starting in finance, and progressing to Finance Director before taking the helm at ASK as Managing Director. Being autistic, people might assume that I’m unable to show empathy, or any of the ‘soft skills’ that are so vital in a leadership role – but hopefully, my team would confirm that I do in fact have those skills too! Like any leadership skill, many of those behaviours can be learned – but in learning how to be a good business leader I didn’t start from an absolute vacuum of empathy; I may show it differently to someone like my partner (who often refers to herself as “a leaky water balloon of empathy”) but it’s inaccurate – and hurtful – to say that autistic people don’t feel it.

What I can do, perhaps better than neurotypical people (or my ADHD partner!) is put my own feelings, and the emotions of people around me, into a separate part of my mind – and keep those feelings separate from the action or behaviour that’s necessary to face any of the more challenging aspects of leadership. Throughout my career, in the various leadership roles that brought me to MD of ASK, I’ve had to perform many of these difficult actions: telling people bad news, making redundancies, performing workplace disciplinary processes, the business facing economic crises, businesses facing closure, and also seen a lot of different situations if staff members are facing distressing events in their personal lives that will impact their work. In any of those situations, I – like any decent person – feel a lot of sympathy, hurt, sorrow and concern – for the individual, for the wider team, for the whole organisation, and of course for myself – but my feelings aren’t going to help the other person, so can’t be part of the conversation I have to have!

Any Leader or Manager being sad, angry, sorry – whatever they are feeling – knows those feelings aren’t going to be helpful if they have to give their team bad news, or tell someone they’re losing their job. In fact, sharing those feelings with the individual you’re sitting opposite is more likely to make them angry, and make the situation even more difficult. My feelings (or those of any Leader, on those occasions) simply aren’t appropriate to share. Nobody being told they’re facing redundancy should also have to deal with an emotional Manager, and being told “I’m really sad about this” won’t make it easier for your staff member to face! I’m sure, after meetings like those, that plenty of angry, unflattering things have been said about me – and understand that it’s part of my role. That I am, at times, going to be the target of their anger, and it’s always awful, sad and difficult to have to have those meetings…but as a leader, my job is to protect the business, to make  difficult decisions sometimes, and to protect the people in my teams as much as possible whilst I do so – even when the immediate action is likely to be upsetting.