Practical ideas for neurodivergent inclusion at work

The problem A team member misses a deadline. Goes quiet in meetings. Pushes back on a process everyone else seems fine with. Most leaders react fast. They label the behaviour, file it under "attitude" or "performance," and move to a conversation about consequences. With neurodivergent employees, that fast reaction is often wrong. What looks like resistance might be sensory overload. What looks like disengagement might be a brain working through a problem in a different order.

"Why does she get headphones and quiet space, and I don't?" If you manage people, you've heard some version of this. Maybe you've even thought it yourself. One person gets noise-cancelling headphones, a desk away from the printer, or permission to skip the open-plan brainstorm and send written input instead. Someone else watches that happen and quietly decides it's unfair. It's a reasonable reaction - if you assume everyone starts from the same place. They don't. The workplac

A leader I'm coaching recently said something that stopped me in my tracks. Thirty years in leadership. A big portfolio. A strong track record. And he looked at me and said: "What's got me here isn't working with my autistic team member. And I don't know how to fix it." That's not a failure of effort. That's a failure of fit - between instincts built for one context and a situation that needs something different. Here's the thing: most leaders aren't judgemental on purpose. B

Simple workplace adjustments should not require a lengthy approval process. An employee tells their manager they're struggling with open-plan noise. They ask to use headphones or shift to a quieter spot a few days a week. Simple, practical, low cost.What should happen: a quick conversation, a sensible decision, done. What often happens instead: a referral to HR, a request for documentation, an occupational health assessment, a wait, another wait, and eventually, maybe, an out

A fabricated news article went viral on LinkedIn recently. The AI-generated headline? "They told me they were autistic but they didn't need to be so rude." It wasn't real. But the reaction was. Over 500 likes, 111 comments, 84 shares in 24 hours. Not because people thought the headline was wrong. Because a lot of people have thought exactly that, and just hadn't seen it written down before. That moment of recognition is data. And leaders who are paying attention need to know

There's a belief that quietly shapes how many leaders manage neurodivergent employees. It rarely gets said out loud. But it shows up in performance conversations, in the way feedback is framed, and in decisions about who gets support and who gets managed out. It sounds like this: "They're smart enough. They just need to apply themselves." "Everyone else manages the deadlines. It shouldn't be this hard." "I've given them feedback. What more can I do?" The assumption underneath