Thinking differently: neuroinclusive management and coaching – why now?
Coaching Today, January 2026

Such comments are typical of my neurodivergent clients’ experiences in the workplace – and sadly, these experiences are not unusual.

Stress, overwhelm, anxiety and mental health challenges are common in the workplace, as they are for the 15-20% of individuals with neurodivergent (ND) conditions (such as ADHD, dyslexia and dyspraxia).^1-4 The outcome is that ND individuals frequently leave organisations – or the workforce entirely – not because of lack of capability or motivation, but because workplace environments, processes and people are fundamentally misaligned with how they can do their best work and maintain wellbeing. One of the contributing factors is thought to be the managers of neurodivergent talent, given that often, they are perceived to be unsupportive, biased against neurodivergent individuals, or exhibit a lack of understanding of ND traits and challenges.^5,6 

It’s not that managers and leaders don’t have good intentions. Often, even experienced managers feel uncomfortable and insufficiently educated to support their ND team members, and some find the experience of managing neurodiverse teams draining.⁷ For ND individuals and their managers, the outcome of this is frustration, misunderstanding and a breakdown of trust. There is significant broader impact now and in the future: 13% of UK companies have been found to have an ongoing employment tribunal associated with neurodiversity in the workplace, generally driven by lack of reasonable adjustments and/or inclusive management and leadership practices.⁸ Therefore, for companies, there is a potential impact in terms of the cost of litigation, as well as the costs associated with recruitment and retention efforts. 

There is increasing urgency to tackle this situation, for three reasons. Firstly, awareness and diagnosis of neurodivergent conditions is on the rise. In the UK, for example, there was an eight-fold increase in autism diagnoses from 1998 to 2008,⁹ and a 20-fold increase in ADHD diagnoses from 2000 to 2018.¹⁰ This is driving an increase in expectations of companies to support ND individuals, which means that companies could be missing out on valuable talent if they fail to do so. Secondly, the skills – such as creativity, visual reasoning and entrepreneurship – that ND employees can bring are likely to become even more critical, given the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI).¹¹ Finally, research shows that inclusive teams that have a range of diverse perspectives and ways of thinking outperform homogeneous teams, so inclusion can have an impact on productivity and the bottom line.¹² 

For coaches working with leaders and teams, this creates both a challenge and an opportunity. How do coaches support leaders in creating environments where neurodivergent talent can flourish? How do we create coaching spaces where neurodivergent individuals can do their best thinking? In this article, I look at three of the interconnected strands that form part of the answers to these questions – neurodiversity awareness, psychological safety and a truly personalised coaching approach. 

Neurodiversity awareness 

As I stated earlier, many managers are well intentioned but feel uncertain about how to handle ND-related topics. If an employee has a broken arm, it can be intuitive to understand what they might need in terms of workplace support. But with neurodivergent conditions, which can present significantly differently in individuals, and whose traits may be invisible, determining support needs becomes less intuitive. For example, one person with ADHD might struggle with task initiation, while another excels at starting projects but struggles with completion. The overlap between different neurodivergent conditions (most ND individuals have more than one neurodivergent condition), as well as the heterogeneity of the conditions, means that there is no one-size-fits-all approach. 

Therefore, the need to personalise, as well as the breadth and diversity of experience, means it is valuable for both managers and workplace coaches having a grounding in the potential impacts of neurodivergent traits, and curiosity about how these might play out for any particular individual. Two examples of what that grounding might include are differences in executive functioning and communication. 

Executive functioning 

These are the cognitive processes that help individuals get started with tasks, organise and manage processes, support working memory, self-regulate and plan. These affect many of the functions that help individuals in achieving day-to-day goals – such as getting to work on time, tackling procrastination, and remembering actions from meetings. Many ND individuals experience challenges with working memory, task prioritisation, time perception or organisation. Rather than interpreting missed deadlines or apparent disorganisation as lack of commitment, neuro-aware leaders recognise these as genuine neurological differences and provide ‘scaffolding’, which might include clear systems, regular check-ins, explicit priorities and external reminders, depending on how the individual works best. 

Communication 

There may also be differences in communication style. A key example here is the role of ‘small talk’. For many neurodivergent individuals (and some neurotypicals!) spending a few minutes talking about the weather or other lightweight topics before getting down to business can feel unnecessary, uncomfortable and even bizarre. However, this is often expected in many meetings and interactions, and plunging straight into the detail of a topic can be perceived as ‘rude’. This is one example of how communication breaks down because of a difference in preferences and expectations. Other examples include the level of directness, the extent to which communication is taken literally, use of metaphors, and the level of detail or interpretation that is given when delegating. It’s clear that personalisation and finding the right approach to working with ND team members is critical. Many of my coachees assert that they have a greater need for this kind of tolerance than they do for being liked or accepted. 

Psychological safety 

Of course, there is a difference between knowing your preferences and styles, and feeling safe enough to share them and work in alignment with them, and this applies to both workplace coaches and leaders in organisations. Closely aligned to this is the leader’s role in creating psychological safety in the workplace – the belief that individuals can speak up, take risks and be themselves without fear of negative consequences, which has a close relationship with the level of trust experienced in a team. This is even more critical for neurodivergent individuals, for several reasons. Firstly, by nature, their ways of thinking and operating are more likely to be different from others, making them less likely to feel part of the group, unless they are proactively made to feel safe and included. Secondly, many ND individuals have experienced repeated developmental trauma^13,14 and histories of being misunderstood, and these experiences can make ND individuals more sensitised to repeat occurrences. 

To put a finer point on one of the contributing factors here: many neurodivergent people experience what’s known as ‘rejection sensitivity dysphoria’ – an intense emotional response to perceived or actual rejection. This often stems from years of negative feedback, explicit or implicit, about behaviours they cannot easily control or modify. A neurodivergent team member who has repeatedly been told they’re ‘too direct,’ ‘too intense’ or ‘too different’ carries those experiences into every workplace interaction. Without psychological safety, the energy required for constant self-monitoring may become unsustainable. Consider this reflection from a senior leader diagnosed with ADHD in her 50s: ‘For decades, I thought I was broken. I worked twice as hard as everyone else to appear organised and calm. Every meeting was exhausting because I was managing two conversations – the actual one, and the internal one telling me to sit still, stop interrupting, and appear “normal”. When I finally found a leader who said, “I notice you think differently, and I’m curious about your process,” something shifted. I could breathe.’ 

For managers and coaches, it’s clear that creating that environment is key to productive and impactful coaching and performance management. Building psychological safety requires intentional practice. Actively welcoming diversity of thought, different ways of doing things, role modelling vulnerability and challenging any microaggressions or assumptions is key to achieving this. Respecting the individual, and their unique strengths, capabilities and challenges, is a crucial part of creating that psychologically safe space. A lack of judgment is also critical – as commented by one individual: ‘If I see judgment… it shuts me down. But if I see flexibility... I operate much better than when I have that “I’m going to do something wrong” feeling.’ 

For many managers, creating a psychologically safe environment may not be fully within their control. Layers of management combined with organisational culture can inhibit managers and coaches in creating that space regularly. However, it may be possible to create some safer spaces, whether by ‘buddying’ neurodivergent individuals with those outside their hierarchy for social support, or by providing sounding boards or mentors. 

A personalised coaching approach

Goal setting and decision making 

Where individuals have sufficient psychological safety to share their communication needs, the workplace can be adapted to meet them. Two examples of this are goal setting and decision making. When it comes to goal setting, asking questions that require hypothetically envisaging the future may not be accessible for some individuals.¹⁵ Therefore, taking a more iterative approach to goal setting, with smaller experiments about what might work in the future, can be helpful. A further example is around decision making. Neurodivergent individuals may make decisions differently from their neurotypical peers. For example, some individuals with autism can become overwhelmed by too many choices, leading to delays in making life choices or financial decisions, which can lead to long-term dissatisfaction, and 82% of individuals with ADHD struggle with decision making, with 68% saying that it significantly impacts their work performance.¹⁶ These experiences are not unique to neurodivergent individuals, but a coach’s role here is to be attuned to the part that neurodivergent thought patterns might be playing in creating these decision-making approaches, rather than judging or trying to change. Being cognisant of this in coaching sessions might lead to the use of more closed or multiplechoice questions, rather than open-ended questions, which can feel overwhelming. 

Working with strengths 

Personalising could also extend to tailoring the approach around a neurodivergent individual’s strengths. ND strengths typically include factors such as pattern recognition, creative thinking, attention to detail and systems thinking, but despite this, ND individuals are frequently told that they are less capable than others (rather than being perceived as different).¹⁷ For example, I recently worked with the leader of a technology team whose employee, diagnosed with autism, was underperforming. Initially, we worked on how they could be the best manager for their team member, and arrived at them having a supportive conversation about how their employee best processed information. The outcome of that conversation was that the individual could analyse complex systems exceptionally well – but only when provided with crystal clear parameters first. The team member would be given detailed project briefs, and then map the system architecture, identifying gaps or ambiguities along the way. In this way, their need for clarity became a quality control asset for the entire team. Using strengths and capabilities like this reinforces the positive impact associated with having the person in the team, and the value that their unique way of thinking brings. 

To achieve this kind of quality outcome, as coaches, we need to combine our curiosity and listening skills with personalisation and flexibility. This is a common theme across all that I propose here. Fundamentally, this isn’t about trying to make people fit the organisation, but finding ways in which the organisation and individual can co-create supportive and fruitful solutions. This is how we create and maintain true neuroinclusion in the workplace.