Are We Commoditising Neurodiversity?

And Could We Be Causing Harm with Good Intentions?

The neurodivergence conversation is getting louder. That is not a bad thing.

More people are recognising neurodivergence in themselves and getting support. More organisations are talking about neuroinclusion. More leaders are beginning to understand that different brains need different conditions in which to think, work, lead and recover.

But I am starting to feel uneasy about what is happening around the edges.

Because once something becomes visible, it also becomes marketable.

And once something becomes marketable, it can be simplified, packaged and sold long before it has been properly understood.

So here is the question I keep coming back to:

Are we starting to commoditise neurodivergence?

Are we turning complex human experiences into neat programmes, badges, talks and coaching niches? I have seen this happen in the outdoor coaching world. We have seen it happen with almost every leadership trend. Something useful emerges. The market spots it. Then it gets polished, packaged and sold back to us, often stripped of the depth and its own identity that made it useful in the first place.

Are organisations buying awareness without changing the conditions that made work difficult in the first place?

And in the coaching world specifically, are we being honest enough about what it takes to work safely, ethically and usefully with neurodivergent clients?

I ask this as someone inside the conversation, not standing outside it with a clipboard and a raised eyebrow.

I am neurodivergent. I have ADHD and dyslexia. I coach neurodivergent and neurotypical leaders. I deliver neurodiversity awareness work and training in organisations. I am an ambassador for ADHD UK. I am also doing further specialist training in neurodivergent coaching because I am increasingly clear that lived experience, while valuable, is not enough on its own.

So this piece is about three things.

First, why lived experience matters, but is not a licence to coach.

Second, why language, labels and awareness can help, but can also flatten people.

And third, why organisations need to move beyond awareness if they want to keep the people whose thinking they claim to value.

Because this is not just an inclusion issue.

It is a leadership issue.

And, bluntly, it is a business issue.

Lived experience matters. It is not a licence.

Sometimes I find myself wondering whether neurodivergent clients are best supported by neurodivergent coaches.

Then I challenge myself, because that answer is too neat. There are always outliers. Human beings are deeply inconvenient that way.

A good coach does not need to have lived every experience a client has in order to work with care, skill and humility. In fact, always needing to relate can become its own problem. Sometimes the most useful thing a coach can do is not say “me too”, but remain curious enough to understand the client’s world without making the work about their own.

But I am increasingly clear on another point: the current bar to entry is too low.

Coaching training matters.

It matters generally, and it matters even more when working with the complexity of neurodivergence, trauma, masking, identity, shame, burnout and leadership.

I have growing discomfort about the number of well meaning individuals marketing themselves as coaches when, in practice, that is not what they are.

They may be lived experience experts. They may have done a short online coaching course. They may be advocates, mentors, educators, content creators or community builders. Some of that work is valuable.

But it is not the same as coaching.

This is an issue across the whole coaching landscape, but neurodivergent coaching brings it into sharper focus because the potential for harm is so easy to underestimate.

Coaching requires proper training, boundaries, ethics, supervision and a clear understanding of how to create a safe and productive relationship. Without those things, the work can become risky, however good the intention.

And intention is not a sufficient safeguarding strategy.

There is a sentence to ruin a perfectly nice day.

The picture is messy.

There are people with lived experience and no coaching training calling themselves coaches.

There are trained coaches with no lived experience and no specialist knowledge or training marketing themselves as neurodivergence specialists.

There are coaches with lived experience and coaching training, but no specialist neurodivergence training beyond their own experience. Sometimes they are still working through the very material they are trying to support others with.

There are also coaches with training, lived experience and specialist knowledge who are still learning every day, because this work is complex and no one gets to be finished. That includes me.

None of these categories automatically makes someone harmful.

But pretending they are all equivalent is risky.

For me, the gold standard is a combination of proper coaching training, accreditation, specialist neurodivergence training or substantial specialist education, lived experience, supervision, ethical boundaries, trauma informed awareness and humility.

That does not mean everyone needs to spend a fortune on another course. There is a huge amount to learn from literature, research, supervision, reflective practice, peer learning, community voices and, yes, the occasional hyperfocus wormhole. And, perhaps most importantly, from working through your own big bag of stuff.

But the learning has to happen.

Not because badges make someone wise.

They really do not. We have all met people with impressive credentials and the emotional range of a teaspoon.

But because this work matters.

When it is done badly, even with kind intent, it can cause harm. A badge does not guarantee safety, but training, supervision and ethical grounding reduce risk.

I know this from both sides.

I have been the coach.

And I have also been the neurodivergent person in the coaching chair.

I once had a coach tell me, during a session, that they felt anxious listening to me.

I do not think they meant harm. I suspect they were trying to be transparent about what was happening for them. Used carefully, and owned properly, sharing what is happening in the relational field can be part of skilled coaching.

But that is not how it landed in me.

My neurodivergent brain did not hear useful relational data.

It heard: you are too much.

Again.

Too fast. Too intense. Too difficult. Too overwhelming. Too hard to listen to.

And because I had spent a lifetime internalising that message, I did what many neurodivergent people do. I took responsibility for the discomfort. I made it mean something was wrong with me.

That is the bit we need to talk about more.

Harm in coaching does not always look dramatic. It does not always look unethical in an obvious, reportable way.

Sometimes it looks like a small comment from a well meaning practitioner who does not understand the client’s history of being pathologised, corrected, toned down or made responsible for other people’s discomfort.

Good coaching is not about tiptoeing around people.

It is about understanding the terrain before you start swinging tools about.

Why I’ve changed my mind about “spicy-brained” language

This is where I need to hold my hands up too.

In March last year, I wrote one of the most personal pieces I had ever shared: Spicy-Brained Leadership: ADHD Diagnosis 18 Months On: What I Know Now, I Wish I Knew Then.

At the time, I was trying to make sense of what my ADHD diagnosis had given me: language, grief, relief, rage, and a new way of understanding the years I had spent leading from survival mode.

I used the phrase “spicy-brained leadership”.

At the time, I loved it.

It gave me a way to talk about ADHD and dyslexia without immediately falling into deficit language. It felt playful, irreverent and more human than some of the clinical language.

And, if I am honest, I still identify with it myself.

But I understand it differently now.

After more training, more conversations and more work in this space, I can see why that framing may not feel helpful for everyone. For some people, it may feel too cute, too vague, too minimising, or too internet friendly for an experience that has carried real cost.

The same is true of the “ADHD as a superpower” narrative.

Personally, I hate it when it is used without balance.

I do not experience ADHD as a tidy little gift wrapped in a TED Talk. Sometimes my brain does feel fun spicy. Sometimes it feels like a complete clusterfuck.

Sometimes I do feel almost superhuman. I can see patterns quickly, move at speed, connect ideas other people have not yet put together, and create something useful out of what looks like chaos.

And sometimes, on the very same day, I cannot make the bed.

That is the bit the superpower narrative often misses.

ADHD has given me strengths, yes. Pattern recognition, energy, intensity, creativity, speed of thought, and the ability to spot connections other people miss.

But it has also cost me. Quite a lot, actually.

So when we talk about strengths, we need to do it without minimising the struggle.

And when we talk about struggle, we need to do it without flattening people into deficits.

Both things can be true. That is the annoying but important bit.

I have clients who genuinely find the superpower framing helpful. For them, it can be a way to reclaim something that has been treated as a deficit for years. I respect that.

But I think the framing only works when it is held with honesty. Not as a shiny rebrand for pain, exhaustion, masking, executive dysfunction or years of being misunderstood.

So who gets to decide which language is right?

The answer is not me. It is not a coach. It is not an HR policy. It is not the loudest person on LinkedIn with a rainbow brain graphic and a suspiciously neat framework.

The answer depends on the person in front of us.

That is why I am wary of any language becoming compulsory. “Spicy brain” can liberate. It can also flatten. “Superpower” can empower. It can also minimise. “Disorder” can validate. It can also pathologise.

Sometimes the words that help one person breathe more easily can make another person feel unseen.

I do not think that means I was wrong to use the language I used.

I think it means I am learning.

And I will keep getting some of this wrong. We all will, if we are doing anything more useful than sitting silently in a cupboard pretending complexity does not exist.

The issue is not whether we get every word right forever. We will not.

The issue is whether we are willing to notice, listen, repair and adapt.

That is why this is not a neat apology for a phrase I once used. It is an example of the wider problem.

Neuroinclusive work requires ongoing learning. Not just awareness. Not just lived experience. Not just good intentions. It requires ethics, humility, professional discipline and a willingness to stay with complexity rather than package it too quickly.

Awareness is not the work. It is the doorway.

This is why I have mixed feelings about the current wave of neurodiversity awareness work. No great surprise to anyone who has heard me rant about International Women’s Day.

I deliver awareness talks. I believe in them. I am an ambassador for ADHD UK, and I have been delivering a talk called Behind the High Performer: My Experience of Undiagnosed ADHD and Leadership.

The talk explores the less visible realities of leading with undiagnosed ADHD, including masking, overworking, shame, emotional intensity, rejection sensitivity, success amnesia, the impact on teams, and the cost of looking like you are coping when you are actually running on fumes.

So I am not anti awareness.

But I am very pro awareness followed by: so what?

I do not want people to listen to me for half an hour, understand my experience, perhaps feel moved by it, and then have no idea what to do with that information.

Awareness is not the finish line. It is the point at which responsibility starts.

Story sharing can be deeply validating. For some people, hearing someone name an experience they have never had language for can create relief, recognition and a sense of not being alone.

For someone else, it can be deeply challenging. It can induce shame. It can make the gap between awareness and action feel even bigger.

That is why awareness work needs to be designed with care.

If an organisation runs a lunch and learn, feels moved for an hour, and then changes nothing, the work has not gone far enough.

The “so what?” matters.

So what changes in how meetings are run?

So what changes in how deadlines are communicated?

So what changes in feedback conversations?

So what changes in recruitment, onboarding, workload, psychological safety and performance management?

So what changes when a high performer is coping, but not actually okay?

This is where many organisations get stuck.

They are willing to create a moment of awareness, but less willing to change the working conditions, leadership behaviours and cultural norms that make inclusion real.

A good neurodiversity session should not simply leave people thinking, “That was powerful.”

It should leave them asking, “What do we now need to do differently?”

And, bluntly, there is a cold commercial truth underneath this.

If organisations do not learn how to create conditions where different brains can think, lead, communicate and contribute well, they will lose people. They will lose ideas. They will lose energy. They will lose trust. And eventually, some of them will lose their edge.

This is not just about being kind, although kindness would be a decent start and apparently still feels radical in some workplaces.

It is about whether businesses can keep the people whose thinking they claim to value.

Because if your most original thinkers have to burn themselves out, mask themselves flat, or leave in order to survive, that is not a neurodivergent person problem.

That is a business problem.

Diagnosis can matter. It is not the whole human.

For many people, diagnosis can be life changing. It can give language, validation, legal protection, access to support, and a way to stop privately turning difference into personal failure.

I do not want to minimise that. My own diagnosis changed how I understood almost every part of my life.

At the same time, we need to get better at recognising self identification, late discovery, barriers to diagnosis, and the reality that some people do not want to label themselves at all.

Support should not depend entirely on whether someone has, wants, can access, or chooses to disclose a formal diagnosis.

Some people know exactly why they think differently.

Some people are only just starting to wonder.

Some people do not want a diagnosis.

Some people cannot access one.

This does not mean the old “we are all a bit on the spectrum” commentary is helpful. It is not. It is dismissive, inaccurate and deeply frustrating.

But it does mean we need to mature our thinking.

Some people have spent so long adapting to environments that did not fit them that they no longer know what is neurodivergence, what is trauma, what is burnout, what is anxiety, what is personality, and what is simply being a human trying to function in a fairly bonkers world.

And the truth is, these things can overlap.

Trauma can show up in ways that look similar to neurodivergence. Chronic stress can change how people process information. Burnout can affect memory, emotional regulation, sensory tolerance and communication. Neurodivergent people may also carry histories of being misunderstood, excluded or shamed, which can create additional layers of protection and survival behaviour.

So yes, diagnosis matters.

And no, diagnosis is not the whole story.

The work is not to flatten these differences or pretend they are all the same.

The work is to understand the person in front of you.

How do they see the world?

What helps them think?

What overwhelms them?

What do they do when they feel unsafe?

What conditions allow them to function well?

What have they been told about themselves that they may still be carrying?

That is why I do not really market myself as a neurodiversity, dyslexia, autism or ADHD coach.

I understand those phrases. I know why people search for them. And yes, I do work with ADHD, dyslexic, autistic and neurodivergent leaders.

But I do not only work with people who have a diagnosis, want a diagnosis, or want to organise their entire professional identity around a label.

My work is neuroinclusive by design, not label dependent.

It is for leaders who are tired of squeezing themselves into models that were never built with their whole humanity in mind.

It is for organisations that want to stop treating one type of brain as the default setting.

And it is for people who are ready to stop simply coping and start leading in a way that actually works.

Why this matters for leaders and organisations.

This is not just a coaching industry problem.

It is a leadership problem.

And there is a growing business case behind it.

Research and employer case studies suggest that neuroinclusive teams can bring gains in productivity, innovation, problem solving and quality, particularly when neurodivergent people are supported properly rather than simply expected to fit into the same old systems. Deloitte has reported that teams with neurodivergent professionals in some roles can be up to 30% more productive. Harvard Business Review has also highlighted examples from organisations such as SAP and Hewlett Packard Enterprise, where neurodiversity programmes have been linked with lower defect rates, higher productivity and stronger business outcomes.

I would still be careful with the headline, though.

Neurodivergent people do not automatically make a team perform better just by existing in it. This is not workplace alchemy. The advantage comes when organisations create the conditions for different thinking to be heard, understood and used well.

That is the bit many organisations miss.

Neurodivergent leaders are often some of the most creative, fast thinking, pattern spotting, committed and original people in an organisation.

They can also be the people quietly burning through huge amounts of energy to look fine.

They may be masking, overworking, compensating, absorbing shame, avoiding feedback, over explaining, under asking, driving themselves too hard, or driving their teams at the pace of their own nervous system.

And because many are high performing, the organisation often misses the cost until something breaks.

I am living proof of what can happen when support is missed.

A resignation. Tick.

A burnout. Tick.

A conflict. Tick.

A team that has learned to survive the leader rather than work well with them. Tick.

A brilliant person who decides they cannot do it anymore. Tick.

This is why neuroinclusive coaching and leadership work cannot sit in the “nice to have” wellbeing corner.

It is about performance.

It is about retention.

It is about risk.

It is about whether your most talented people can do brilliant work without having to abandon themselves in the process.

And it is about whether your organisation is actually designed for the range of brains already inside it.

Spoiler: most are not.

So, where does this leave us?

Are we commoditising neurodivergence?

Yes, I think we are at risk of it.

And yes, I think that is dangerous.

Not because people do not care. Many do.

But because markets like simple categories. Organisations like neat solutions. Social media likes identity shaped soundbites. And human beings are much messier than that.

The neurodiversity conversation needs to grow up.

Awareness and lived experience matter.

But they are not enough on their own.

If we want to support neurodivergent leaders properly, we need skill, ethics, humility, behavioural change and a willingness to understand the person beyond the label.

That means being careful about who calls themselves a coach.

It means being careful about the language we use.

It means designing awareness work that leads somewhere.

It means understanding diagnosis without reducing people to it.

And it means treating neuroinclusion as part of leadership, culture, performance and risk, not as a small wellbeing side project with biscuits.

Real inclusion asks more of us than that.

It asks what we are prepared to change.

What I can help with.

If your organisation is ready to move beyond awareness and start changing how work actually works, I can help.

My work is informed by lived experience, accredited coaching training, ongoing specialist neurodivergence training, supervision and real world leadership experience.

I deliver Behind the High Performer, a talk exploring undiagnosed ADHD, leadership, masking, high performance and the hidden cost of coping.

I also work with neurodivergent and neurocurious leaders through executive coaching, and with organisations that want to make leadership, communication and culture more neuroinclusive in practice.

That might look like:

A talk or lunch and learn that does not stop at awareness, but helps people understand what needs to change.

Executive coaching for high performing leaders who are coping, masking, overworking or trying to understand how their brain actually works.

Consulting and facilitated conversations for organisations that want to make leadership, communication, feedback and culture more neuroinclusive in practice.

If that would be useful for your organisation, get in touch.

Because awareness may start the conversation.

But it is what we do next that actually matters.