Leveraging Neurodivergent Brillance at Work
In this episode of Shedding the Corporate Bitch, host Bernadette Boas interviews leadership coach and author Rachel Radway about the hidden strengths and hidden challenges of neurodivergent professionals in corporate settings. The conversation opens with a framing that many high‑achieving employees are mislabeled as “difficult” because their neurodivergent traits—deep pattern‑recognition, hyper‑focus, intense empathy, intuition, and strategic thinking—are misunderstood as attitude problems. Radway describes the early stigmatizing messages that neurodivergent high‑achievers receive (e.g., “you’re too sensitive,” “grow a thicker skin”) and how those messages shape self‑sabotage. She introduces the concept of neurodivergent burnout, a severe, often invisible form of exhaustion that can erode personality, confidence, and performance. The dialogue then explores the diversity of neurodivergent profiles, from twice‑exceptional (2E) individuals to the combined ADHD‑autistic “AudiHD” phenotype, emphasizing that “if you’ve met one neurodivergent person, you’ve met one neurodivergent person.” Radway outlines common gifts (systems thinking, pattern‑recognition, strategic foresight, moral intuition, deep empathy) and the flip‑side challenges they create—people‑pleasing, boundary loss, over‑context‑seeking, and communication styles that can be perceived as “talking too much.” She argues that traditional personality frameworks (DiSC, MBTI, Enneagram) are insufficient for capturing this complexity. The conversation turns to the dilemma of disclosure: while some disclose to obtain accommodations, many experience retaliation, performance‑improvement plans, or layoffs, leading to self‑sabotage. To avoid forcing disclosure, Radway shares a practical inclusive practice—personal user‑guide templates that let team members voluntarily share communication preferences, recognition styles, motivations, and personal quirks, which can be introduced during onboarding and modeled by leaders. The interview repeatedly reframes neurodivergent traits as leadership superpowers, urging leaders to cultivate curiosity, empathy, and a culture of getting to know each team member. Radway stresses the cost of not advocating one’s gifts, citing a senior consultant who risked being overlooked for promotion because he stayed silent. She also promotes her book Perceptive: Insights for Leaders Who Feel More, Process Deeply, and Think Differently, which compiles interviews with 16 women leaders, personal stories, and actionable tips. The episode closes with a call to action: listeners are directed to Radway’s coaching site, her LinkedIn, and the book, and encouraged to implement personal user guides and regular check‑ins to unlock neurodivergent brilliance in their organizations.
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Today's episode is for anyone who's ever felt misunderstood at work, like you're too intense, you're too sensitive, too blunt, too much, or someone's always getting labeled as difficult when you're just trying to do your job well. Because here's the truth: you might not be the problem. You might be neurodivergent in a workplace that doesn't recognize your strength. And that matters because neurodivergent traits like deep thinking, high pattern recognition, hyperfocus, creativity, strong intuition, and intense problem solving can be absolute superpowers in the workplace when leaders know how to see them and support them. But when they don't, those same traits can be misread as attitude, resistance, overthinking, or being hard to manage. I'm joined by Rachel Radway, leadership coach and award-winning author of Perceptive: Insights for Leaders Who Feel More, Process Deeply, and Think Differently. With 25 years of leadership experience across startups, nonprofits, and Fortune 500 companies, Rachel is here to unpack why so many talented professionals, men and women, don't fully leverage their strengths and why gifted team members and leaders are often misunderstood or sidelined when they're actually bringing something incredibly valuable to the table. The different ways neurodivergent brains process information, approach problem solving, and the very real impact of neurodivergent burnout, the kind that can change your personality, drain your confidence, and make you question yourself. You'll walk away with powerful reframes. Simple communication shifts that can change everything, and a reminder you might need today. You're not broken and you're not alone. You're operating in a system that wasn't designed with your brain in mind. Let's get into it.
Welcome to Shedding the Corporate Bitch, the podcast that transforms today's managers into tomorrow's powerhouse leaders. Your host, Bernadette Boas, executive coach and author, brings you into a world where the corporate grind meets personal growth and success in each and every episode. Let's do this.
Rachel, how are you? Welcome, welcome.
Thank you, Bernadette. I'm thrilled to be here. Thank you so much for having me.
What was it about self-sabotage? What was it about high achievers maybe that really drew you into this particular subject matter?
I actually work with a niche within high achievers. I work with a lot of people who identify as either highly sensitive or wired a little differently or neurodivergent. And within that group, there tends to be a lot of high achievers who may or may not know that their brains are wired a little bit differently. But we tend to— and I, we, I identify as part of this group, obviously. A lot of us have gotten messages from very early on that we are crazy or broken or doing something wrong because we are smart, we are competent, we are talented, and we are not doing things the same way that other people around us are doing them. We might think differently, feel differently, process differently. And when I started my coaching business, these are the people who were drawn to work with me, even though I hadn't put myself out there in that context, I was just talking about working with corporate leaders. The themes that come up with each client are very similar. And so much of it is about first, just the messages that we got growing up and those stigmas.
Can you give us an example of what those messages are beyond what you already spoke about? But what does it look like and feel like? Sure.
So a lot of the people that I work with got the message that they were too sensitive, that they're, that they had to grow a thicker skin, that they couldn't have the things that they wanted to create an environment that worked for them. For example, for me, I am highly sensitive to sound and to noise. And if I've got lots of uncontrollable noise around me, I can't focus. I can't concentrate. And it sets my nervous system off. This is true with a lot of the people I work with. And yet it's very hard to control your environment, right? And I was always told, you can't have what you want, just deal with it. There are other messages as well. Some of us are, can be very emotional and it is really just part of the way that our brains are wired. And yet it's very hard to show up as a leader, especially in the corporate world, and show emotion, right? You get judged for that.
Right.
So for all—
there are so many reasons that I can think of. There are communication issues that are themes. There are lots of other themes that we can get more into. But again, the themes are very common and I was seeing them over and over again. And it— as I learned more both about myself and about neurodivergence and neurodiversity and the way the world works, it made me more passionate about doing this work with people.
I don't blame you. And it is interesting how we do find our niche right here. You're working with what you thought was just going to be corporate leaders, but then an aspect of you comes into play when you're all of a sudden observing those same things in other people and it just becomes highlighted and really provides a great spotlight for both yourself and for them. To have the support and someone they can relate to.
Exactly. Exactly. And it's one of the things that really appealed to me about the name of your show is how unaware we can sometimes be, even those of us who consider ourselves very self-aware. And yet there are all kinds of factors that contribute to not being able to notice these things. I know that you have talked about burnout before on your show. And one of the stories that I talk about a lot is a very severe episode of burnout that I had many years ago when I am sure that people were calling me a bitch because I lost my sense of humor. I lost my sense of empathy. I really didn't know what was happening to me. And it wasn't until many years later that I learned that Neurodivergent burnout is a thing all by itself that isn't talked about and that can be much, much, much more severe and that can really change our personalities. And one of the things that I talk about is there are many more neurodivergent folks out there than we know. And neurodivergence can look very different from what we grew up believing or being led to believe by movies and books and things like that.
Paint that picture. Paint that picture of what neurodivergent individual is, their behaviors. Again, you mentioned some of those things. And what are their biggest challenges in recognizing that in themselves?
So I, I'll start my answer by saying there's a phrase that's used in the neurodivergent community. If you've met one neurodivergent person, you've met one neurodivergent person. So there is no generalizing about what neurodivergence looks like. It's just that it can be very different. Those of us who grew up with movies like Rain Man, I don't even remember, I think that was in the '80s or maybe the '70s. The Rain Man is about an autistic man who is very profoundly autistic and shows certain traits. And so a lot of people who saw that movie think that's what all autistic people are like. There's actually a concept now called 2E, or twice exceptional, people who are both intellectually gifted and neurodivergent, sometimes autistic, sometimes they have ADHD. I have— I was diagnosed with ADHD a few years ago. I also learned that I have some autistic traits. Combined, those two things make a trait called AudiHD, and That can look extremely different in every person that has it because for some people who have it, the ADHD is more pronounced. For some people, the autistic traits are pronounced, and the two together can both inform each other and conflict with each other. So to answer your question more directly, some of the traits that can show up are a lot of gifts like Systems thinking, being able to recognize patterns, being able to connect dots. Strategic thinking, being able to think and see several steps ahead. A strong sense of intuition, a strong sense of moral justice and needing to be aligned with values and needing to see justice around and in the workplace and in community. Deep empathy. Although there is also something called the double empathy problem that talks about how two people who are— and I'm going to use air quotes here— neurotypical, meaning not wired differently. I use air quotes because I don't actually believe that's a thing. But two people who are neurotypical can empathize with each other. Two people who are neurodivergent can empathize with each other. The challenges come in when people who are wired very differently from each other struggle to understand where the other person is coming from. So this is a well-known challenge and it's complicated. But that said, the neurodivergent folks that I work with have extreme amounts of empathy, sometimes to the extent that it causes other things like people pleasing and a lack of boundaries. So that's where some of the challenges come in. Lots of people pleasing, lots of lack of boundaries. One of the things that I learned a few years ago from a wonderful book called The Brain of the Highly Sensitive Person is that those of us whose brains are wired a little differently often tend to optimize for successful group outcomes rather than for personal agendas for ourselves. So we tend to put ourselves last and put everyone and everything before us. We tend to put 150% into everything we do and really get passionate about things. There can be communication challenges. So I could go on and on about those. There are reasons for them. And there's some of the things that show up. And one of those I'll just talk about is a lot of neurodivergent people really like to have context. They need to understand the why. A lot of us tend to be both big picture and detail, which is a challenge of its own. Yes. And I'm one of those people. Yeah. And most people aren't. Most people are either big picture people or they're detail-oriented. When you're both, you often need more context. You need to know the why, you need to understand the big picture, and you need to know all of the little details because we want to get it right and we want to get it right the first time. And because we are wired that way, we tend to give more context when we're talking to other people, whether or not they want it. And so a lot of the time this comes across as talking too much, not being able to read the signals about when to stop, or asking a lot of questions in a situation where people just want you to stop and go do the thing.
Yes.
And those are all traits that I see really commonly in people that I work with.
What's coming up for me is this is beyond If you're familiar with DiSC assessments and the style, different various variations of styles outlined in the DiSC, this goes beyond that, wouldn't you say? Because it's not just that what you just described, people could say, oh, they're a C to a degree. They're Cs and they got some Ss in there. And from an empathy perspective, maybe some I, but it's beyond that. So leaders have to be careful. Not to pigeonhole or box in someone's traits and natural style into something that— like that. Is that a fair assessment?
That is beautifully said, Bernadette. And one of the things that I talk about a lot is how can leaders start leading with curiosity and with empathy and not with judgment.
We all—
it's human to judge things through our own lenses. And then when you're trained in something like the DiSC assessment or the Enneagram or the Myers-Briggs, there are all kinds of assessments out there, you can start seeing people through those frames. The fact is no two brains are the same anywhere in the world. We are all different. We all have strengths. We all have things that we need to work on, opportunities, and things that just aren't as strong for us. And we all have different motivators and things that inspire us. So how can we stop just making assumptions based on what we see or what we hear, or just our past experience, and lead with curiosity and ask questions and get to know someone, basically get to know the people that are working for you and with you. Exactly. Exactly.
Because we're all unique. We should all be considered special because we are unique and it shouldn't work against us. Now, not all high achievers though, are necessarily neurodivergent, correct?
Correct. Although I'm going to just put a little Caveat in there. The numbers, the official numbers say that somewhere around 20% of the population is neurodivergent. I actually think that number is much, much higher, and I am not alone in that. Hence my air quotes before when I was talking about neurotypical. All neurodivergent means is brains and nervous systems that function a little bit differently from normal. Who defined normal? Where did normal come from? How many normal people do you know? So there are, there was a study that was done recently that, that said that Gen Z, more than 53%, I believe, of Gen Z self-identifies as neurodivergent. There are a lot of reasons for that, and if you start thinking about the fact that I think the figure is two-thirds of professionals who are neurodivergent don't disclose in the workplace, and all of the people who are unable or unwilling to even try to get an assessment or a diagnosis for a lot of different reasons, I think those numbers are much, much higher. So all of the things that I talk about can really be applied to the larger population. But one of the things that I really want to emphasize is so many people think that neurodivergent means people with intellectual deficits or other kinds of challenges. And often we have challenges that are invisible, but we are high achievers.
Yes. So you had mentioned that some just don't want to disclose. And does that work for them? Talk about self-sabotage. Does that work for them or is that working against them?
It could be either one. There are people who end up in a way self-sabotaging by disclosing. So there are so many— there's still so much lack of understanding and lack of empathy for people who show up differently from the way you do, right? When leaders don't understand, when HR professionals don't understand. When there is— when a company hires for cultural fit, disclosing that you are wired differently may actually work against you. And I have had— I have heard story after story and read story after story, unfortunately, of people who did disclose hoping to get some kind of understanding or accommodation, and instead were put on PIPs, were caught in layoffs even though they were super high achievers, were fired, were held to different standards. So there are a lot of reasons why people don't talk about it. And even if it's not to your leadership, people are concerned about what their peers might think or being treated differently or all kinds of possibilities.
Another thing that's coming up for me is the fact that, again, we want leaders who are in touch with what their people individually need in order to work at their best and to be the best contributors that they can be. And without putting the label on it, so they don't go and necessarily talk about them being neurodivergent, but isn't there a kind of a conversation that can happen around almost, this is how I like to communicate, this is how I don't want to communicate, this is what works for me, this is what's gonna make me feel beat up, without having to disclose the nets in that way that could get them shut off? Or is one way that they're getting sabotaged is even by bringing that up, if they're working for a leader who really doesn't care how they operate individually?
I love the first part of your question, especially because one of the things that I talk about a lot is how can leaders create a more inclusive environment without asking anyone to disclose and without calling anyone out? The fact is that things that work for one population, regardless of what that population is, typically end up working for larger parts of the whole. One of the things that I did when I was working in team operations in two different roles in two different companies was create templates for personal user guides. And everyone loved doing this. So there are all kinds of ways that it can be done. And the idea is that you provide a space for people to share what they want to share about themselves. You can start with some very specific questions like, what are your communication preferences? How do you prefer to be recognized? Some people want to be recognized very publicly. Some people are just like, you know, just send me a private email or give me a raise or whatever. What are some things that people might not know about you right away or might misunderstand about you from the way you show up? What are some things you would love people to know? What are some things that motivate you? How do you spend your time outside of work? Do you have any dietary restrictions or preferences? A lot of people celebrate their teams by taking them out to lunch, but don't even think that some of the people there might not be able to eat what they're what they're being taken to. So these personal user guides are, I think, a brilliant and fun way to get to know— not only for the leaders to get to know the people in their organizations, but the idea is that, first of all, the leader can be a role model and fill it out first so everyone can get to know them. You share them in a space that everyone has access to. So that everyone on the team can learn about everyone else on the team. And that helps with empathy building. And you make it part of your new employee onboarding so that every new employee not only gets to see who their teammates are and who their leader is, but they also contribute to it. So that's, you know, it's equitable. People fill out as much or as little as they're comfortable doing. It's a way for everyone to share without saying, I am this, or they can say that if they want to, but they don't have to.
It's not much different than, I don't know about you, but when we were on board as a coach, and I have a number of clients that are, we have a profile that we ask them to fill out so we can get to know them and understand how we can best support and serve them.
Sure.
And I love the idea of, from an employee onboarding, because that also sets a standard and sets an example from the very beginning, wouldn't you say?
It absolutely does. And like I said, most of the people on both of the teams that I did this with really enjoyed it. They had fun with it. They got creative with it. People put pictures of themselves with their pets and doing stuff outside of work and people not everyone got super vulnerable, but some people did and shared things about themselves that you wouldn't know when you're working with someone, you know, in a normal corporate environment.
Now let's look at it as far as—
let's flip it.
We're talking about how people are self-sabotaging themselves as a result of some of that behavior, whether it's the individual or the leader. At the same time, a lot of these traits that you're talking about and qualities of individuals and their skills are also a gift that also could be leveraged to pull out the best of someone, correct? What would you say to that?
I would say absolutely, 100%. And this is one of the things that I talk about in my book. These— we are so programmed as humans, and a lot of us have just dealt with a lot of trauma, and as I was talking about the messages earlier on, we focus on the challenges. It's not— we don't typically look at the gifts. And a lot of the people that I work with, I mentioned before that we tend to optimize for successful group success, for successful group outcomes and not personal agendas. We tend to downplay our own gifts. We tend to think that these are, that these are things that everybody can do. And it's not special for me. And this is something I work with every client because not everyone can do the things that you can do. And learning to embrace and harness and leverage those gifts, they really are superpowers, right? They can help you deal more effectively with some of the challenges.
Yes.
And especially gifts like empathy and intuition and connecting the dots and strategic thinking and some of the other things that I mentioned earlier. Those are such assets in leadership roles. That so many are missing.
Exactly.
That so many are missing.
We can look at anywhere at any company and see lots of leaders that don't have these things. And yet the leaders that I work with are often afraid to speak up or afraid to— sometimes it's for good reason. They may have, they may have tried to talk about something before and gotten shot down. A lot of the time, for example, the intuition and the being able to connect dots and the strategic thinking and seeing, a lot of the time we know what the outcome of a specific business decision is going to be. And we know that it's not going to be what the executive who made it thinks it's going to be. And yet, we can't always say how we know it or where that knowing is coming from. And that stops us from speaking up. Or we're sitting in a meeting where 10 different people are speaking up just to be heard. Because it's the loudest voice in the room. And we don't want to show up that way. So we don't speak up. And a valuable opinion is lost.
Share with us the perception and the negative impact it has advocating for themselves because no one else is going to do it unless you're going to do it.
Exactly. This is happening with many of my clients right now, clients who I'm supporting at the moment. One just told me he is a very senior-level consultant at a big company. And we have been talking a lot about his concern about speaking up just to speak up. And in our last call, he actually told me that somebody who has known him for a very long time reached out after a big meeting and said, hey, I just wanted to give you a heads up. The partners have been talking. And we're concerned about you. Where is the guy who showed up so brilliantly at this other meeting several months ago? We need to see more of you. They're talking about who's going to make partner, who's going to make managing director. They're talking about who's going to get promotions. Every company right now is still discussing layoffs and potential layoffs. And if you don't show up, and share your brilliance and let them know that you are really thinking about these things and that you do have the best interests of the company at heart, you are going to be passed up for these things or be included in a layoff that maybe you shouldn't have been included in. There are a lot of consequences from it.
And they need to advocate the gifts and the things they bring to the table that probably the majority of the people sitting at the table with them are lacking.
Exactly. Exactly. And just things like reading the room, you know, that is so important. And so many leaders, as you were pointing out, don't have it.
Share with us, you mentioned your book a couple of times and we'll make sure that it's all the information is included in the show notes. Share with us a little bit about your book, Perceptive.
The book is about high sensitivity and neurodiversity. Especially in leadership roles in the workplace and the strengths and the challenges that come with being wired a little differently. And I've shared some of those. I interviewed 16 leaders from different backgrounds. They all happen to be women leaders because at the time I was working primarily with women. Now I work with clients of all genders. But in the book, the people that I interviewed are women. They share personal stories about their traits, both their strengths and their challenges, and things that they didn't realize initially were strengths. And they share some tips for success. And I share, of course, some of my own stories in there as well. It was a long time coming in learning to understand for me why I was struggling with so many different things, because again, I was supposed to be intellectually gifted, right? I went to great schools. I achieved great things and I still struggled all the way and also was masking, which I didn't even know was a thing until a few years ago. And that takes its toll.
Yes, it does. And we could have a whole conversation around masking. And I'm actually going to make a note about that because I am the master, used to be the master of masking, hence the name of the show.
But I resonated with that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I love that. So perceptive. So go to reercoaching.com to learn all about her. Go to Amazon for her book and go to Ari Radway on LinkedIn and link in with her. Be sure that you're really understanding the work that she's doing and how she could support you, especially if you or individuals on your team may fall into this category of individuals that we're talking about. At the same time, those traits and qualities are things that should be leveraged and what I'll call exploited, because I love that word when it looks to say really optimize them, really like leverage those gifts. What one final tip or piece of advice or maybe a call to action you would share with our listeners and viewers?
I think I would go back to what we were talking about before with leaders who really need to get to know the people on their team. I know that when you are super busy and you have back-to-back meetings for 12 hours a day and you are, and you have a team of hundreds or dozens or whatever the size is, that it can feel unrealistic and overwhelming to think about getting to know the lead, getting to know all of the people on your team. And yet there are ways to do it, and there are little, do things like introducing the personal user guides. You can have somebody in operations or somebody in HR help you with that. And when you have your one-on-ones, you can pull out one little thing, do check-ins with people, really find out how they're feeling. That getting to know people is the key to creating empathy with you, with the team itself, among the team, among members of the team with each other.. And also providing an environment where people can feel safer and more confident leveraging, exploiting all of their gifts and their superpowers. And that is gonna be to the benefit of them and your team and your organization.
Absolutely. Amen to that. Amen to that. Rachel, thank you so much. This has been fantastic. And again, everyone, I wanna remind you, Go to RERcoaching.com, learn all about Rachel as well as LinkedIn with her at Ari Radway and/or just put Rachel Radway and really learn and see how you can leverage her gifts in helping your team and yourself be a powerhouse leader. Thank you, Rachel. Love this conversation. And if you did too, feel free to share it with your team members, your colleagues and others who might need to pay closer attention to others, but also need to pay closer attention to themselves to identify if maybe the traits and the skills and/or the qualities and things that they bring to the table have either been working for them or against them, and they just didn't know why, and they didn't understand why. You can also be sure to follow, subscribe, and like the show, and you could do that at ballofirecoaching.com/listen.
Podcast.
It was great having you here, and I'll look forward to having you for another episode of Shedding the Corporate Bitch.
Bye!
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