Like many autistics, you have a preference for direct communication. It makes things simpler, clearer and more efficient for everyone involved and that efficiency translates to better results.
You’re also recognised for it. You’ve been told before that your communication style is very direct, although you’re not sure whether or not that’s a good thing. There’s a fine line between direct and defensive and you’re not sure you always get it right.
At the same time, you get frustrated by others for not being direct. You’ve been baffled by confusing feedback too many times to count, become frustrated when meetings drag on because people are having different conversations past each other and have definitely picked up on irritation when you’ve asked too many clarifying questions.
In this blog post we’re talking about navigating communication in the workplace as an autistic who prefers directness and what we can do about some of the more frustrating aspects.
The Double Empathy Problem
You’ve probably got some awareness of the double empathy problem already, the idea that the mismatch between autistic and non-autistic communication comes from a lack of mutual understanding across the two groups. In general, those of us who are autistic tend to be able to communicate well with other autistics, and those who aren’t autistic also generally tend to communicate well within their own group. It’s the autistic to non-autistic communication where things become more challenging.
Directness is something that can get caught up in the middle of this exact situation and a good example to examine this is when it comes to giving feedback. An autistic giving feedback to another autistic is more likely to be taken as intended: This is the thing that needs improving. The same feedback might be interpreted by someone who is not autistic as rude or not appreciative of the effort that was put in. Note that I say more likely, interpersonal communication is never an exact science!
In the other direction, feedback that has been softened by the non-autistic could be confusing to the autistic recipient because it obscures the actual point behind the softening language. Someone who prefers direct communication might receive the feedback “A, B and C are good but you might want to look at D” and interpret it as on average everything is going really well when the truth is that D going badly is actually the part they should be focusing on.
The important thing to note is that this is a mismatch on both sides which means it’s not solely the failure of the autistic individual if communication isn’t working out. Communication is a two way street and sometimes we need to conform to a communication pattern that isn’t our favourite in order to move things forward.
And if we’re talking about adopting a communication pattern that isn’t our favourite then that means it’s time to talk about masking.
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Do I Have To Mask To Get By At Work?
Masking is the process of hiding your autistic traits to appear more neurotypical. Many of us who were late diagnosed became very good at this without even realising until it all came to a head shortly before our neurodivergent discovery…
The problem with masking is that it’s very energy intensive. Just like it requires more cognitive power to speak in a language that’s not your native, it requires a lot of effort to mask, especially if this is something you do all day every day. Some people find it easier to mask than others, but when life demands creep up and energy is required elsewhere, it can become exceedingly difficult to keep up the mask even for the most adept at wearing it.
It can also feel unfair that we need to mask in the first place. Why should we have to spend the energy going against our normal way of being in order to conform to the typical standard? Some people reject the concept of masking entirely, believing that the only way to show up is to be your authentic self and that we all just need to accept that.
As with a lot of things, my position on masking is nuanced and sits in the middle. Personally, I see masking as a tool in your toolkit.
I’m being very literal with my imagery today. Note if you’re also ADHD (so AuDHD) you need a bigger toolkit so you can cycle through your options when you get bored of your current tool.
Every day you are faced with demands from work, home, life in general, and you only have a limited amount of energy. As we know, masking constantly depletes that energy and so it’s important to have people you don’t need to mask around, people you can be your authentic self with to preserve your energy for life’s other demands.
The people you choose to unmask around need to be people you trust and you might need to invest some energy in education in the short term to help them adapt to this new phase of your relationship when you start to unmask. Who you choose to be unmasked around is an incredibly personal decision and can range from only your nearest and dearest to everyone at your company if you want to be an advocate where you work. Importantly, you get to decide where you draw that line.
But the other important consideration is that unmasking isn’t always the most energy efficient option. Unfortunately, we live in a world where the majority of people are not autistic and a significant chunk of the population generally have very little knowledge about autism at all. If you need something from someone, it might well be more energy efficient to mask through it than to unmask and navigate the educational (or unfortunately maybe even hostile) dynamic that this creates.
The important thing to note is that masking can be morally neutral. You don’t have to mask to be “professional” and you’re not being “inauthentic” when you do mask. It’s a tool in your toolkit that you get to decide when to use. I’ve done a further deep dive into masking as a tool which you can read if you’d like to know more.
So with that in mind, how does this tie into directness? In short, it works in the exact same way. Direct communication is your default, your unmasked state that you can use with people who are comfortable with it, either because they appreciate it themselves or they know you well enough that they know rudeness was not your intention even if they do initially interpret the communication as abrupt.
Indirect communication is then the equivalent of masking, a tool you use in relevant situations to make communication more effective and productive. But this is possibly a bit too simplistic because it implies direct communication should be limited to places you can unmask. In reality, directness can have benefits and challenges regardless of whether you’re fully masking or lot. So let’s talk about that next.
One particular point needs repeating: You do not have to mask to be “professional”. Professional can look like many different things and it does not have to look like “pretending to be neurotypical”.
Is Direct Communication a Bad Thing?
This is something that often comes up with my autistic clients who have been identified for their direct communication before and it can introduce a very confusing dynamic. If you’re naturally direct, you probably see the benefits of increased efficiency and reduced misunderstandings. Yet if someone has brought it up to you as feedback, there’s possibly something else going on there.
I’ve worked with clients who have reacted strongly to this feedback and have over-corrected, desperate to come across as kind and likeable and worried that their directness has done the opposite. So let’s answer this question once and for all.
Directness is not a bad thing most of the time. Even if there is a mismatch in communication style, it doesn’t necessarily mean that directness is bad. In fact, in my deep dive on whether directness is a bad thing, I gave examples of when directness can be an act of kindness, an act of generosity and an act of leadership. You prefer direct communication for a reason, it has genuine benefits that are incredibly worthwhile and if you’re starting to doubt yourself, have a look into my deep dive and reassure yourself of the pros that are there.
But of course, we do need to talk about the cons as well and to talk about that we need to introduce the concept of psychological safety.
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Psychological Safety in Relationships
Psychological safety is an important aspect of how people behave in relationships. In positive relationships with your nearest and dearest, you probably have a high level of psychological safety. You’ve spent years building these relationships and there’s a high level of trust and support.
That means that if you do say something that is blunt and direct that was maybe not what that person would have preferred in that situation, they’re likely to treat it in the way it was intended and give you the benefit of the doubt, even if that is not something they would have said in that situation.
Most workplace relationships also start with a reasonable baseline of psychological safety where people attribute good intentions to people they work with which is why your default generally tends to be okay in most situations. It’s when psychological safety has been lowered that directness starts to work against you.
When psychological safety has been lowered, there are extra layers of interpretation that go into the conversation. People are less likely to give you the benefit of the doubt for clumsy phrasing and more likely to see bad intent regardless of whether or not you intended it. In this situation, direct communication can quickly pick up the labels of “defensive”, “abrupt” and “rude” and these lower the psychological safety further.
In this situation, we often realise there’s a misunderstanding and, wanting to fix this misunderstanding, tend to follow the route of being even more direct to leave no potential ambiguity over what it is we’re trying to say. But because psychological safety is already lowered, it picks up the interpretation layer regardless and traps us in a vicious cycle instead of making things better.
One thing I’ve noticed is that this is often incredibly confusing, especially when the same directness works in other scenarios. It’s also counter-intuitive that being more specific and less ambiguous can make things worse. But psychological safety is the missing link that makes things make sense.
One thing that’s important to note here is that sometimes psychological safety can be lowered because of nothing to do with you whatsoever. It can often be because something completely separate is going on in this person’s life and you’ve just happened to stumble into a conversation when their psychological safety is already low, behaved in your normal way and this has accidentally had the side effect of picking up this interpretation layer that sets off the vicious cycle. This wasn’t your fault but it takes two people to have a conversation and build a relationship and two people to fix it.
Note that in these situations, you can only control one side of the interaction: your own. In this case, adapting your communication style to improve the relationship is a lever that you can pull for the greater good of the relationship.
I’ve done a deep dive into how to navigate points of relationship deterioration in another blog post so feel free to dive in if you’d like to learn a little more about navigating these situations.
Having just acknowledged that we can only control our own behaviour, let’s talk about the frustration when others aren’t direct with us instead.
When Other People Are Confusing
As someone who prefers direct communication, one of the most frustrating things is when others aren’t direct. Whether it’s feedback you’re receiving or instructions of what to do, sometimes you’re trying to understand what the other person is communicating but are left totally baffled. Let’s dive into this situation next.
So I’m going to talk about this directly in terms of the workplace, but I’m aware that this can also happen in personal relationships outside of work. There is of course a lot of overlap, but keep in mind that psychological safety comes into play here, especially with things like romantic relationships, and close friends and family relationships so sometimes repairing the psychological safety needs to take precedence over the things I’m about to discuss.
The basic response to what to do when faced with baffling instructions is, of course, to ask for clarification and if you can ask for clarification and get on the same page then that’s obviously the best way forward. Something you can use to help with this is saying:
“So let me make sure I understand, what I think you’re saying is x, is that right?”
where x is paraphrased into words you understand. From there the person can agree on what you agree on and clarify the points that are confusing. This will cover the vast majority of situations.
So let’s talk about the situations that this doesn’t cover: The times when we can’t ask for clarification. This can either be because we’re embarrassed at needing to ask for clarification because we should know this already (I have feelings about the concept of “should” already but I’ll save them for another post) or because we’re aware that we’ve asked a lot of clarifying questions already and think the other person is already or might become irritated if we keep asking for more. Both of these situations are valid too and a lot more stressful because we can’t ask for the clarification needed.
These situations feel like you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. If you try and action what you’ve just been told then there’s a high chance you do something wrong and frustrate the other person, but if you ask lots of questions then they become frustrated too. So it’s time for one of my favourite questions my clients are used to hearing: “What’s in the middle?”
The reason why people become annoyed at all of the clarifying questions is because it puts the responsibility, ownership and brain capacity on them which can be a challenge if they’re struggling with capacity. Particularly if it’s something they’re trying to delegate to you, or feedback they’re trying to give to help you. The stream of questions in response feels like you’re creating more work for them which is not what they set out to do. But if you don’t understand then how are you meant to do what you’ve been suggested to do?
Okay, how is this for a metaphor to remember to ask “what’s in the middle”? Goldilocks and the three bears. When it seems an either or, there might be an in the middle that looks “just right”.
Make the Plan
When I talk to leaders on the other side of this who are struggling to delegate to employees they find aren’t capable of it, my answer is this: Delegate the plan. If the individual takes on the plan and messes it up, well then you’ve got nothing to lose because you were in no worse position to start with. So with that in mind, I’m giving the same suggestion to the confused direct communicator: Try and come up with a plan.
Realistically, you’re often not in the situation where you have absolutely no idea where to start if you take a bit of time to think the problem through. And if you’re still lost after taking that time then you do need a clarifying question to take away to get you started and can build from there. The important part here is that you take the time to think things through and come up with a plan yourself. That shows intent even if you don’t quite get the exact point the other person was getting at. Then once you have created as much of the plan as you reasonably can without asking clarifying questions, you can bring the plan to the individual for feedback.
The reason this is different to asking clarifying questions is because you’ve already put in work to understand and have probably answered some of the questions you would have asked by yourself. It also gives them a starting point so the conversation is not a blank page. By seeing what you’ve put together, it also helps them see your point of view and the potential disconnect in the conversation, meaning it’s much easier to pinpoint misunderstandings and get them cleared up more quickly.
Now of course with everything, there’s a balance to be struck her. Sometimes asking a clarifying question or two in the original conversation is the most efficient path forward. Sometimes we can overthink and overengineer the plan, making us take significantly longer than we needed to to be able to come to an agreement. So here are some important things to keep in mind when you’re in this situation:
What do I understand about the situation/conversation/business that I can draw on for some reasonable assumptions?
When you’re genuinely stumped: What one question would unblock me from where I currently am?
And finally, when you’re stuck in that situation of “either I ask or I take far too long to do it”: What’s in the middle? If there’s only one takeaway from this blog post, make it this question.
Navigating the Workplace as an Autistic
Of course the examples I’m sharing in this blog post are high level, often simplified. When we bring things into the real world, there’s always nuance involved and specific challenges that get in the way. It’s why we get so drained by workplace politics where theory can often fall apart when confronted with the real world.
So my work as a leadership coach involves working directly with Autistic, ADHD and AuDHD leaders to figure out how to navigate the challenges they come across in their own workplace. I’m not about giving you theory and making you fill out exercise sheets (very rarely do I ever give out exercise sheets…), but rather I dive into your real leadership problems, figuring out how to solve them in a way that works for YOU.
If you’d like to talk about what that looks like for your career, then get in contact and we can talk through your unique situation. I’m very up front about telling people when I can’t help them and referring them on to someone who can (and have done many times) but I’m also very clear on who I can help and how so let’s have a chat and figure out what the next best step is for you.
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