Celebrating different minds

Apparently this week was neurodiversity celebration week with the rather charming tagline "celebrating different minds". Last year I made reference to being diagnosed with Autism and ADHD and this week seems like a good opportunity to write a little about what it's like.

First, the important caveats. I'm not medically trained so I'm writing from my own experiences and reading. Also, different forms of neurodivergence have very different impacts on people's lives and many exist on their own spectrums - my experience with autism may well be very different from another's.

I'm not going to draw a dividing line between my experiences with ADHD and Autism here. I have both, which seems counterintuitive - you might think they would cancel each other out. They don't. Instead, your brain goes to war with itself. This can result in an outward balance - for example, my need to fidget being cancelled by my need to follow the social rules for not doing that - but inside, it's a constant tug of war between opposing impulses. Most of this is invisible from the outside.

So over time, I have learned how to ride through this. I have always struggled to do things in good time. At school, I would do assignments late in the deadline but then I'd have absolute focus to get it done - or rather, the drive would be to avoid failing. If this sounds stressful, then yes - it is. It has been the same with job applications.

Heavy procrastination in general is something to actively manage. I have to watch myself from a distance and ask pointed questions like "why are you still doing that?" or write deadlines to trigger my desire to not fail. I write daily lists to create this impulse.

My brain needs stimulus. I am very good at not being bored, but anyone who has read this blog for a while will see the posts popping up saying variations of "I am bad at resting". I need to be doing something, learning something, creating something, thinking five thoughts at once... Even while I'm writing this I am jumping to another screen to upgrade a Rails app in the background.

This leads to a very noisy inside life. One experiment mapped the brain activity of a neurodivergent individual vs a neurotypical person doing the same, mundane activities. Where the neurotypical person has nice smooth signals, the neurodivergent person shows signals which look more like a seismograph during an earthquake. This was a very powerful image for me - a picture showing that my internal world is both extremely noisy, and not "the same for everyone".

Much of that links to regulation of dopamine and reward in the brain, and that can lead to all kinds of behaviours. The more obvious are seeking stimulation, which can be very destructive if that leads to drugs or other harmful behaviour - this is a whole separate topic. It can also create other unexpected behaviours. For me, I find I struggle with snacks - I have to avoid keeping them in the house at all else I'll just eat them. For a long time I did not know why, but now I realise this was dopamine-chasing behaviour - in essence, I was inadvertently self-medicating. I also do not really feel the same high from exercise others describe, which makes it a real grind to actually do any. Combine these, and you can guess the effect on my physical health!

At the less destructive ends of the different spectrums, where I am fortunate to be (I think), life carries a lot of friction, but I see it as a series of tradeoffs like my brain is overtuned for some effects. Hyperfocus is a good example of that. Getting lost in a topic completely can be great for learning and progress - a benefit. However, unlike "flow" (something everyone can experience), hyperfocus adds destructive elements - losing track of time and reality to the extent I forget to eat, sleep or ... other functions. Without counterbalance and control, it can create serious problems. The same is true of other traits, such as strong pattern recognition which can progress to the point of overanalysis and over-interpretation, drawing unhelpful conclusions.

Another overtuned trait I experience is noise sensitivity. Like many neurodivergent people, I can hear the whining of electrical devices most people can't and my brain prioritises strange background sounds like electronic beeping of alarms in the distance. This makes me a pretty good sound engineer, and able to find electronic components which are not behaving properly. However, this isn't something I can turn off and the outside world is so very noisy. From distant alarms which crawl under my skin until I can hear nothing else, to feeling agitated in a room most people think is silent, to rooms I find so loud it physically hurts to enter. I had a long period where I had to sleep with all the windows closed because of the whining noise coming from the generator in the basement next door. Their management company had an engineer look at it, and they kept saying (quite correctly, to be fair) that their generator was behaving within normal parameters but that noise entered my brain and would not leave. So I lost sleep for months, while anxiety built and built. This was resolved when the generator failed because the component I could hear across the street died so ... painful vindication.

However all this happens below the surface. If you meet me, you may not notice anything different about me at all. Even if you do, I've managed to navigate the world successfully. Which is where masking comes in. In practice, this is deciding how to show up to different situations (which everyone does to an extent) but like most things here pushed much further than the norm. For me, this practice has been helpful with conforming to different sets of social rules or expectations but does also lead to problems with identity. When am I ever me? Masking, like all the different ways of behaving to fit the norm, is very tiring. It can also go further - prolonged masking can lead to burnout and the loss of sense of identity, along with experiencing dissociative symptoms.

All this can result in a lonely existence. People draw comfort from being around folk who see the world like they do but - put bluntly - we don't get that in mainstream life. This can be very useful - channelled right, a different worldview can challenge norms and drive change - but it is also isolating. I rarely get to relax around people, I'm always putting on a mask for the occasion.

Even writing this is causing some anxiety as I expect someone to say "yeah everyone is like that".

These are just some of my experiences. I've found people often have questions about neurodiversity but don't feel able to ask them. If anything here raises questions, I'm very happy to talk - no question too strange.

Leadership as an emotional shock absorber

I know very few people who have started 2026 in an optimistic and cheerful place. I certainly haven't. I want that to change - to get back to facing things with a positive disposition and a sense of humour. It matters for me, but it matters more for those around me. Most people are more affected by the mood of others than they care to admit.

But first I have to acknowledge that wanting a more positive frame of mind does not make difficult things disappear. The world is unstable. More personally, I'm still having "fun" with health. Work is going through a difficult time of change. So that's the context - it's easy to be smiles and sunshine when everything is good. It isn't.

However these are the times when it's important to support everyone else, and one way to do that is to be a bulwark against negativity. Negative thinking is like a disease - it jumps between people until it burns out against those who resist it. Unlike a real disease, however, you can make a choice to be immune (or at least less susceptible). We do not always control what happens to us, but we do control our response to it.

At work this is particularly true. People need space to vent and they need peers and leadership to recognise reality. However, it is an often-forgotten duty of leaders to explain why things aren't as bad as they think, and show the positive route forward out of all this. This is true (especially true) even when things are, in fact, as bad (or actually worse) than they think.

There is a core leadership skill here - how do I tell this story in a positive way, while remaining authentic? The authenticity is vital else it's either a stream of mindless optimism or (worse) just "senior management spin". But there should be a rationale, and thus something constructive to say here. Why is this change being made? Why has that project been cancelled? If your starting assumption is that leadership is incompetent, then no explanation will ever satisfy you. However, in reality there is usually some logic. You may not like it or agree with it, but attempting to understand and communicate it is an essential part of leadership. This may be a bit "party line" for some, but ideally as a leader you've had a chance to speak into this situation before the decision is made. At that point, it's about how to make it work, not how to undermine the decision maker.

Obviously this is a too-broad statement. It assumes that all involved have the best intentions for the wider organisation at heart which is definitely not always true. However, in a healthy organisation this is usually the case, so it's important that we support change as best we can.

But good grief, this can be exhausting at times.

It is one thing to declare this "good leadership" - and I stand by that - but actually being that person can take a serious toll. You have to understand the detail of key changes across the org (not always easy!) then put yourself in the firing line from people who don't agree and don't want to like it. You need to be able to gently and compassionately listen to the concerns of people who are in a volatile state (upset, angry, afraid) and through conversation try to reassure and bring them round again and again. This might be in a group, which potentially has a "stand up to the mob" dynamic. Or it could be one to one, which can be even more draining if you're listening to one unhappy person after another.

For those stepping into this space, it can be the relentlessness that is actually what drives to breaking point. There aren't many senior leaders in an organisation, so the higher you rise the fewer people you can yourself talk to. If you're really trying to be a positive force, you're also attempting to support others, so potentially there is no release valve. When you're moving from one unhappy person to another, you are choosing to absorb negativity and emit something constructive. This is much harder than simply reflecting it back. It can become soul destroying getting knocked down and dragging yourself up again and again.

So what's the useful comment here? Well, it's important to recognise that this kind of engagement is an important part of leadership. It's also a different skillset, and like any other it needs developing. It is a reflex that can be honed much lower down the hierarchy than some. You may not be managing a budget, but you can certainly pay attention to what is going on around you and be a positive (or at least constructive) part of the dialogue. As individuals, we need to remember that support isn't just about reaching out to others - it's also in the microbehaviours. If we turn up to every meeting complaining, this is a drain on everyone around us. Our concerns may well be legitimate (so don't stop voicing them) but maybe bring along some good news and / or solutions. In fact, if our complaints are legit that is worse in this scenario as the boss really needs to listen.

We cannot control all the turbulence in the world around us, but we can control whether we amplify it. Choosing to be a steadying presence is not denial; it is discipline. In difficult seasons, discipline is leadership.

Learning to celebrate success deliberately

It is the start of a new year, and January has been a bit of an introspective month. I've been pondering my strengths and weaknesses as a leader. Something I find difficult (or at least doesn't come naturally) is celebrating success, especially collective success, and that matters as part of encouraging and building a team or community.

I think this stems from my own approach to celebration. I'm a planner, and I'm usually quite good at predicting how things are going to turn out. If something goes as planned, it feels adequate but not remarkable. If it doesn't, then it isn't something to celebrate at all. As I get more experienced (nearly wrote "older" there) fewer things surprise me, so the world separates into "adequate" and "disappointing".

However, I have worked with managers who take the "if I don't complain, you're doing it right" approach and I find it very unsettling at best. I don't want to be that person to others. Over the years I have trained myself to be more liberal with praise - making sure I call people out when they are doing decent work, not just exceptional work. These days, I think I'm ok at individual praise and being supportive. I'm much worse at wider, structured praise such as celebrating the success of a release or a project.

This is not because I don't value either the delivery or the individuals involved. I am fiercely proud of the people who work for and around me, and have often gone to bat to defend them if I hear anything different. And I certainly don't have a problem giving credit appropriately - I have an almost visceral hatred of even half-appearing to take credit for the work of others, even when I actually led it. My problem is that when one big thing completes, I'm already thinking about the next problem or considering what went wrong.

So in summary, I can praise a person (although like many I do find it uncomfortable) but find broader praise for a delivery more unnatural and difficult to remember.

This is clearly not a good thing for team morale!

I'm going to link this to being autistic - or at least how autism shows up for me. As I said above, I have this internal flatness and while I try very hard to keep it inside where it can't hurt anyone, unfortunately my real self does come out from time to time. It is important I recognise this, and think of ways to put it right. Plus, I get a blog post out of it.

I've got a variety of tricks for remembering to do praise and celebrations ... which does make me feel like an android remembering they need to blink and smile to stop the humans feeling uncomfortable. Notes in the diary / todo list work really well ("say well done here"). It sounds crude, but if you're used to organising yourself by a checklist why not add expected emotional reactions?

For individuals, I joked above about training myself but this is genuinely what I did. I made praising people a deliberate and considered act, which means for me I track praise / criticism in a conversation and try to balance the scales properly. I've also had to overcome my natural uncomfortable feelings about doing this - again with deliberate practice. However, by dispassionately thinking about conversations in this way, I think I'm doing ok at the 1-1 level and also have managed to gain some useful skills in keeping the tone of the conversation where I want it (eg not being too nice if I'm correcting someone, or vice versa). All of this takes deliberate effort. Tracking conversations, balancing praise and correction, and consciously managing how I show up for others is work.

Being neurodiverse is exhausting at times.

Groups I do find harder. I can say the words, but if it needs to go further into an actual celebration I am lost. I have had a lot of success with the classic (and genuinely good) leadership approach of surrounding myself with people more skilled than myself. In this context, that means people who are more naturally effusive than me. These fine folk either directly remind me, or (more often) just twitch at the right time which makes me react quickly and speak up. Like I say, it's not that I don't want to celebrate and praise, it just doesn't occur to me.

This post has been about my own thought process, but at the end of this ramble there are some solid tips. Make lists, take deliberate action and if all else fails outsource it. Good leadership isn't about feeling the right things, rather it is about doing the right things consistently. Even when they don't come naturally.