Posted on: 21/08/2025

Thought Leadership

Gayle Hudson, WME Associate, explores how neuro-affirming coaching creates safe spaces where neurodivergent colleagues can thrive. Drawing on lived experiences and workplace practice, it challenges leaders to move beyond awareness to action, embedding coaching and inclusive approaches that unlock hidden potential.

By Gayle Hudson, Coach and Consultant & West Midlands Employers Associate

If your neurodivergent colleagues are still masking in meetings, your leadership space isn’t as inclusive as you think.

Too many workplaces remain designed for one type of brain. For people with ADHD, autism, dyslexia and other forms of neurodivergence, this leads to exhaustion, anxiety, and untapped potential. The question for leaders is no longer "Are we aware?" but "What are we doing differently?"

As a coach working across the public sector, I’ve seen one practice rise above the rest when it comes to building trust, inclusion, and performance: coaching. Not the checkbox kind, but the kind that makes people feel deeply seen.

Coaching is more than a conversation

It’s a mirror, a pause, a challenge. For neurodivergent professionals, it can be the first place they’re invited to stop masking and start asking: what do I need to thrive?

One coachee, six months after their programme, reflected:

"I am currently going through diagnosis for ADHD. My coach has experience in this area and their kindness and empathy made me feel very safe and understood. Something as simple as being given a fidget toy in our first session made a huge difference, I still use it now... to help me focus. I would never have considered such a small practical change."

This wasn’t just a kind gesture. It was a strategic shift, centred on how people actually function, not how we assume they should.

Another coachee with Aspergers said in one of our coaching videos:

"This is the first time I’ve ever felt I didn’t need to mask. Coaching has given me a way to ask for what I need, and to be asked what I need too."

Here’s the provocation: If you’ve never asked someone what helps them think or feel safe, what message are you sending about who gets to thrive?

Matching with the right coach matters

At West Midlands Employers, we’ve recognised it’s not just the coaching that makes the difference, it’s the connection. That’s why we transformed our matching hub. Clients can now filter for coaches with lived or learned experience of neurodiversity, disability, ethnicity, gender, and more. Coaches can also choose to share more about their identity.

This isn’t about ability. It’s about visibility. When people see themselves reflected in someone else, they trust more and grow more.

When asked what difference this made, clients told us: "It made all the difference... the process was so much deeper and meaningful."

"My coach was a working mum, as I was, and has lived and worked through some similar experiences."

"They understand and save trying to explain yourself."

Representation in coaching isn’t optional. It’s foundational.

Leadership through a neurodiverse lens

This October, we’re calling on senior leaders to do more than nod at inclusion, to champion coaching as a neuro-affirming practice.

You don’t need to be an expert in neurodiversity. You need to be courageous enough to create environments where no one has to leave parts of themselves at the door.

Ask yourself: When was the last time someone said they felt truly safe in your space?

Councils like Oxfordshire and North Staffs ICB are already embedding inclusive coaching into development programmes. These are spaces where inclusion isn’t talked about, it’s practised.

The data is clear. Only 1 in 10 neurodivergent employees feel fully supported. Over half mask their traits daily. This isn’t a marginal issue. It’s a leadership gap.

A closing challenge

Neuro-affirming coaching isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s a requirement for effective leadership.

It redefines high performance. It reframes difference as potential.

If you still equate success with conformity or volume, you’re overlooking talent hiding in plain sight.

Leaders, stop waiting for comfort. Start making space.

Space to think differently. Space to lead inclusively. Space where no one chooses between being excellent and being themselves.

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