If there’s one thing that drives me and many other neurodiversity advocates in our work, it’s to help create for others what we never got to experience ourselves.
Safety. Worthiness. Belonging. As neurodivergent leaders, we know what it feels like when those basic human needs go unmet. Many of us have experienced exclusion from a young age, forcing us to perform a more socially acceptable version of ourselves just to survive.
It’s therefore all the more understandable that when, at some point in our careers, we get to step into a leadership role, we’re highly motivated to create the kind of safe and supportive environment we wish we’d had ourselves.
It’s our chance to give others what we were never given.
But that can also put a heavy burden on us. One we may not feel fully ready for.
There’s a lot of talk in organizations these days about how leaders need to create psychological safety within teams. But there’s very little acknowledgement of how difficult this can be for leaders when they’ve never experienced psychological safety themselves.
The truth is, we carry ourselves into a leadership role, including any unprocessed hurt or struggles.
A promotion may give us a temporary boost in confidence. But it can’t heal our inner wounds. If anything, stepping into a leadership role can magnify the gap between how we feel inside and what we’re expected to project outwardly.
I’ve been no stranger to this tension myself – chairing team meetings with 20 people, feeling like I needed to appear confident, when inside, I still felt like 10-year-old me, hiding behind a tree in the playground because I was afraid of being picked on.
Outer me seemed calm and composed. But inner me still felt fundamentally unsafe.
It’s made me wonder:
Is it even possible to create psychological safety for others when your own life has been defined by its absence?
I like to believe it is.
I believe we can transcend the traumas of our past to instill a greater sense of safety in ourselves and others.
Perhaps it’s in retrospect that we can give meaning to our own struggles, by helping clear the path for those who come after us. As author and organizational psychologist Dr Ludmila Praslova rightfully argues, increased neurodivergent representation in leadership may be our best chance of breaking the cycle of exclusion.
But it demands something of both the leader and the organization. First, we need to develop an honest understanding of how early experiences of exclusion and years of adaptation can scar a neurodivergent leader before they even get started in their role.
When a sense of unsafety follows you into leadership
My own first attempt at leadership was in my late twenties, when I set up a small marketing team in the company where I worked at the time.
It didn’t end well.
Despite being determined to succeed, my behaviors inadvertently undermined our success: I took on too much work rather than trusting others with the work, I was overly prescriptive in how things should be done, and I avoided any kind of uncomfortable conversation because I perceived disagreement as a threat.
In other words, I displayed all the hallmarks of a leader who felt unsafe. My team suffered the consequences. And so did I, by the way: I exhausted myself to the point where I didn’t have any energy left for a life beyond the office.
With the wisdom of hindsight, I can now see my behaviors for the trauma response they really were. Because the story I told myself from a young age was one of “not being enough,” I was constantly overcompensating for my perceived deficits, desperately trying to prevent any mistakes that would expose me for the fraud I thought I really was.
Never did I feel worthy of my role. That’s a hard place to lead from.
Organizational psychologist Dr Nancy Doyle does a great job of examining these unhealthy mental patterns in her book Learning from Neurodivergent Leaders (full review below). As Dr Doyle explains, many neurodivergent people have distinct strengths – such as creativity, problem-solving, and a strong ethical compass – that can make us great leaders. But a lot of us end up sabotaging ourselves through perfectionism, overworking, or people-pleasing.
All of these are maladaptive ways of trying to heal our inner child. And they are the opposite of what is required to instill psychological safety in a team.
The inner work comes first
I’m hopeful nonetheless – because, from my experience working with neurodivergent leaders, I’ve also seen how many ultimately managed to find a greater sense of security in who they are. They are now role-modelling the kind of leadership that instills psychological safety in others: rooted in trust and empathy, focused on strengths, and actively soliciting different perspectives.
That’s the kind of growth I’ve observed in myself over the years as well.
As I look back on the past few years, when I had the opportunity to lead a neurodiversity network in the company I work for, what I’m most proud of are the moments colleagues shared with me how safe they felt in the team.
To be honest, there were many times I still wrestled with the same unhealthy tendencies towards perfectionism and overworking. I often ended up stepping into gaps when I shouldn’t have.
When you care deeply about a cause, you can easily fall prey to “rescuer complex”: sacrificing yourself to save the community. But over time, I learned to let go a bit more easily. And the safer I felt in myself, the better I was able to create those conditions for others.
In other words: we need to do the inner work first.
Or, as Dr Nancy Doyle writes in her book:
“It was only when I properly learned to trust and care for myself that I began to create the psychological safety around me that others needed as well.”
It’s a truth that hit me hard when I first read it.
For Dr Doyle, learning to trust and care for herself meant learning to set boundaries, and investing in rest and recovery so she could show up more fully for herself and her team.
It’s been the same for me, in ways I’m still grappling with. It has also meant learning to see mistakes as opportunities for growth, as difficult as that can be when you’re programmed to talk yourself down.
What many neurodivergent leaders have in common is that we need to learn how to tell new stories about ourselves. We are not broken or deficient. We are capable and worthy. Again, Dr Doyle captures it beautifully:
“Your own healing journey, love, and compassion for yourself is a precursor for compassion for others.”
Neurodivergent leaders shouldn’t feel alone in this journey.
I believe many organizations could do far more to support neurodivergent leaders, whether it’s through mentoring, coaching, or creating safe spaces to share experiences and learn from each other.
We often assume it’s neurodivergent employees who need community and support, with neurodivergent leaders being portrayed as inspiring role models. But in reality, many neurodivergent leaders long for that same sense of safety and support. And if we can help each other find it within ourselves, perhaps we can become the leaders we once needed.
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