Neurodiversity shapes leadership.

Beautyful tiles outside a Museum

Neurodiversity shapes leadership more than most people realise. It does not just change how someone learns. It changes how they plan, prioritise, communicate, and stay steady under pressure. In safety, those differences can become either a hidden drain or a real asset.

I was diagnosed with dyslexia late in life, but the signs were always there. I could not tell letter b from letter d. I learned to read at eleven. People labelled me slow or distracted, even when my mind felt fast and alert.

What dyslexia looked like from the inside.

Reading aloud was something I avoided, because it turned simple mistakes into public moments. Writing in front of others created pressure that cut straight through my confidence. Under stress, I froze. Not because I did not care, but because the processing load spiked and my brain stalled.

So I built systems. Lists, reminders, repetition, and routines that reduced decision load. I tracked every error to see what it was trying to teach me. I learned to look “capable” by working twice as hard to produce the same output.

University brought it back, then technology shifted the equation.

University dragged those fears back into the open. Spelling, note taking, public writing, and the constant sense of being one mistake away from being judged. The pressure was familiar, but the world had shifted. Technology finally started to match the way my brain works.

Autocorrect, spell check, and writing tools did not make me smarter. They removed friction. Large language models went further, because they let me capture ideas at the speed they form, then organise them before they scatter. That is not cheating. It is access.

AI is not just a threat, it can be an equaliser.

For many people, AI feels like a threat to identity or value. For people like me, it can be a cognitive equaliser. It does not remove dyslexia. It amplifies what sits beneath it, including creativity, visual reasoning, pattern recognition, and adaptability.

Those strengths were built through necessity, not design. When you spend years compensating, you learn to see systems, spot gaps, and build safeguards. You also become sensitive to how workplaces unintentionally punish normal human variation. That matters in WHS, because risk often starts where people feel shame, rush, or silence.

What this means for leaders and WHS governance.

If you lead people, neurodiversity is already in your workplace. The question is whether your systems help it, or grind it down. Poor job design, unclear priorities, noisy communication channels, and high rework environments create avoidable cognitive load. That load shows up as errors, fatigue, missed signals, and withdrawal.

This is not “wellbeing” as a soft add on. It is risk management through better design and better assurance. When a workplace reduces avoidable friction, people can use their strengths instead of spending energy masking.

Practical moves that actually help.

If you want neurodiverse people to perform, stop relying on vague expectations and heroics. Build work that is clear, measurable, and humane. Start here;

• make instructions written, not just verbal, with one owner and one deadline stated clearly;

• reduce rework by standardising templates, checklists, and review points for critical documents;

• design meetings with agendas, pre reads, and decisions captured in writing afterwards;

• allow assistive tools like dictation, text to speech, and AI drafting within clear confidentiality rules;

• train leaders to spot overload indicators early, then fix the work design before harm shows up.

The point I wish I learned earlier.

Dyslexia did not make me less capable. It forced me to think in different ways. It shaped how I analyse work, map systems, and lead teams.

If your brain works differently, build with it rather than against it. The strength is already there. The job is to stop wasting it on survival tactics, and start using it for impact.

If you want WHS insights grounded in real practice, follow my work through WHS Guard.