What Is Neurodiversity, and Why Should You Care at Work?
TL;DR: Neurodiversity isn’t just a buzzword. It’s a powerful lens for understanding how people think, work, and thrive. When companies make space for different minds, both professionals and leaders benefit.
The future of work is neurodiverse.
Not just because more than half of Gen Z now identify as neurodivergent, but because many adults in their 30s and 40s are being assessed for ADHD or autism after recognizing the traits in their children. As school systems evolve, so do family patterns. This ripple effect is forcing us to rethink productivity, inclusion, and support in the workplace. But what does ‘neurodiversity’ actually mean, and why does it matter for your career or your team? This post will break down the fundamentals.
What Is Neurodiversity?
A Brief History
The term neurodiversity emerged from online autistic communities in the late 1990s as a direct response to the medical model of disability that framed differences like autism, ADHD, OCD, or Tourette’s as defects to be fixed.
In contrast, the neurodiversity movement recognizes these differences as natural variations in how human brains function. Instead of seeing difference as a dysfunction, it challenges the assumption that everyone should think or act the same, and calls for environments to adapt to people, and not the other way around. There’s no single “correct” way to think, feel, work, or process information. Human cognition exists on a spectrum, with many expressions of memory, attention, emotion, sensory experience, and communication.
A Few Key Terms:
Neurodiversity is a shorthand for embracing neurological differences as a natural part of being human.
Neurodivergent describes people whose cognitive or sensory processing differs from cultural or medical expectations.
Neurotypical refers to those whose ways of thinking and processing align more closely with dominant norms.
Masking refers to the conscious or unconscious effort neurodivergent people make to hide or suppress their natural ways of thinking, behaving, or reacting in order to fit in or avoid judgment.
Why Does This Matter at Work?
Most workplaces are still built around a one-size-fits-all model that rewards visible output, linear timelines, and fast responsiveness. But that model often overlooks how people actually generate insight, sustain effort, and create value — especially neurodivergent professionals. When environments don’t account for cognitive differences, the result isn’t just lower productivity and output, but cultural misalignment, miscommunication, and burnout. And we know how much burnout costs both on the individual and company level.
Supporting neurodivergent thinkers at work is not about lowering the bar, it’s about clearing the path. With the right structures, neurodivergent professionals often bring sharper ideas, faster insights, and unconventional solutions that move teams forward.
For Neurodivergent Professionals: From Surviving to Thriving
Ever told that you’re too much, not enough, too sensitive, or too inconsistent? Feel like you’re working twice as hard to keep up, only to fall short of expectations that aren’t even related to your deliverables? You’re not imagining it. Neurodivergent professionals expend more energy at masking for the purpose of professional presentation than their neurotypical counterparts. Not just out of the presumed expectation of looking the part, but to safeguard from negative social and employment outcomes. This can increase the chances of burnout, but also emotional distress, identity confusion, and overall mental health risks.
Understanding your neurodivergence can help shift the narrative from “Why can’t I work like everyone else?” to “What do I need in order to support how I naturally am?” By optimizing the way you work, you can create systems that enhance your strengths and support how you naturally think, process, and thrive.
Consider these common professional scenarios:
You work best under intense bursts instead of steady output.
You lose focus and energy in open office plans but excel in deep solo work.
You grasp complex systems quickly, but forget daily routine tasks.
Many late-diagnosed or self-recognized neurodivergent adults spend years feeling out of sync, trying to fix themselves rather than questioning the system around them. But there is nothing wrong with you, you simply may have different needs to achieve.
Building Your Personal Owner’s Manual
To start reducing burnout and building sustainable systems, consider how to honor your natural rhythms:
What specific aspects of work drains your attention unnecessarily?
What time of the day and week do you have the most and least amount of energy
How do you process new information (audio, visual, hands-on)?
What sensory inputs support or derail your concentration?
Coaching, community, and self-reflection can all play a role in helping you understand your patterns and design work that fits. This isn’t about lowering your standards but creating a foundation that honors how you operate so you can thrive without burning out. When you stop fighting your brain and start designing for it, you unlock a life that gives permission to do things differently without shame and self bullying.
You don’t have to mask your way to success. There’s a different path, and it starts with understanding what actually works for you.
For Managers and Team Leads: How to Unlock Your Team’s Potential
You don’t need to be neurodivergent to create a neurodiversity-affirming workplace. But you do need to recognize how exclusion can happen by default.
Neurodivergent minds often bring strategic advantages to professional environments such as spotting inefficiencies, uncovering patterns, designing better systems. The professionals you most admire for unconventional solutions or relentless curiosity may already be leveraging neurodivergent traits, consciously or not.
But those strengths are often overlooked or hidden when people feel pressure to mask or conform. The pressure to maintain what is considered “professional” can lead to burnout, disengagement, and missed potential. As a leader, your role isn’t to enforce sameness. It’s to clarify outcomes and make room for different paths to get there. Creating a neurodivergent-effective workforce isn’t just about social good. It’s a competitive advantage. When you support diverse ways of thinking and working, you unlock innovation and drive results. Here are four ways to build a more impactful and inclusive team:
Four Actionable Strategies for an Inclusive, High-Impact Team
Clarify the ‘What,’ Not the ‘How.’ Set crystal-clear goals, deadlines, and definitions of success. Then, get out of the way. Ask: Am I paying my team to follow my instructions, or to deliver exceptional results? Micromanaging the process is a direct barrier to innovation.
Treat Accommodation as a Strategy, Not a Favor. Normalize tools that help people work better: noise-canceling headphones, flexible hours, visual planners. Ask: What’s one small workflow change that would help my team focus better? High-performers need the right gear.
Give Feedback on the Work, Not the Style. Focus your critiques and praise on the quality and impact of the actual output. Before giving feedback, ask: Am I responding to the quality of the work, or my personal preference for how it was presented or communicated? This distinction is crucial for retaining diverse thinkers.
Default to Curiosity. When someone brings you an unexpected idea, meet it with interest, not immediate judgment. Ask: Walk me through your thought process on this. The most valuable insights often come from the perspectives you don’t immediately understand.
Inclusion isn’t about beanbags and fidget toys in the meeting room. It means removing hidden barriers and building systems where people can do their best work.
Redefining Success: Outcomes Over Appearances
The dominant model assumes everyone works best the same way: that energy is consistent, focus is controllable, and communication should follow familiar norms. But that doesn’t reflect the reality of today’s workforce. The most harmful view of neurodivergent professionals is one based on deficiency, when the reality is that many neurodivergent professionals are wired for intensity, fast thinking, and unconventional problem-solving. It’s just that their pathways to success may look different. So we need to ask: are we optimizing for appearance, or actual outcomes?
Because productivity shouldn’t have one look. And success shouldn’t be built on how well someone fits a mold, but rather, on whether they have what they need to deliver their best work. Whether you're neurodivergent or leading a team that includes neurodivergent folks, the goal isn't to make everyone adapt to a rigid mold. It's to build environments where people thrive as themselves, and therefore deliver more because of it.
In short: when we make space for different ways of thinking, we don’t lose productivity, we multiply it.
What’s Next
Follow the Series: this article is the first in a three-part series on neurodiversity across work, home, and relationships. Next up: Neurodiversity at Home - where rest, regulation, and real life collide. Want it delivered to your inbox? Sign up at the bottom of my website.
Want to Go Deeper? If this post resonated, you can explore my article on honoring your natural energy patterns to start building more sustainable systems in your life.
Work With Me: If you’re a professional, leader, or partner done with burnout and ready to design a life that fits your wonderfully wired brain, let’s work together. Book a free 45 min discovery call to see if coaching is the right fit for you.
A Note on the Research
This post draws on research from the following sources:
Doyle, N. “Neurodiversity at Work: A Biopsychosocial Model and the Impact on Working Adults,” British Medical Bulletin, 2020.
Hull et al. "Putting on My Best Normal: Social Camouflaging in Adults with Autism Spectrum Conditions,” Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2017
Pryke-Hobbes, et al. “The workplace masking experiences of autistic, non-autistic neurodivergent and neurotypical adults in the UK,” PLoS ONE, 2023
Vargas-Salas et al. “Neurodivergence and the Workplace: A Systematic Review of the Literature,” Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation, 2025.