Neurodivergent Leadership Coaching Case Studies

My client found himself in his first leadership position without really expecting it. He had been an individual contributor for his whole career until suddenly the expectations were different.

His boss had told him to grow into leadership but he didn’t really know what that meant. He had ideas around leadership, but wasn’t quite sure how to make them for him. On top of that, he struggled to identify his strengths, found networking awkward and worried he wasn’t performing well enough.

From that starting point, we dove deep into his natural abilities and everything changed. Once he understood what he was truly good at, he had a foundation to build on. Instead of trying to fit someone else’s version of leadership, he could step into his own.

He built a pitch around those strengths. The result? His boss was blown away and his role began to evolve in a way that played to his natural abilities. From “accidental leader” to “intentional leader” in one bold move.

In a recent catch up, he shared that his next leadership opportunity came through networking and it was perfectly aligned with those strengths we had uncovered together.

She started out convinced her directness made her a bad manager. That her style would come across as harsh or unkind. Being called blunt was her worst nightmare and she was sure this would be her final undoing.

But here’s the part she was missing: People actually appreciated her directness. They saw her as straightforward, someone you could talk to without second guessing what they meant.

Over time we realised a pattern was emerging: people recognising her for her directness, but explicitly in a good way. By the end of our work together she was describing herself as “direct but not mean”.

Now, instead of fighting her style, she embraces it. She knows when to soften it tactically but also that clear is kind. And that shift gave her what she called “huge confidence gains”.

In the end she used her direct style to navigate a challenge interaction with confidence, showing both herself and her team that clarity and honesty could be a strength.

She started out convinced she couldn’t handle difficult conversations and with good reason. Her relationship with one of her direct reports was struggling and she was caught in an anxiety loop about it.

The fear wasn’t just about the conversation itself, it was about the potential fallout. Would it damage the relationship further? How would that affect how others saw her? Each conversation had potential to make things worse.

So we built her toolkit: anchoring when her brain went blank, setting goals before she entered the room and learning how to buy herself thinking time instead of panicking.

Over the course of three months she had two opportunities to put this into practise in real high stakes situations, both times with better results than she’d hoped for.

By the end, a conversation with her own boss ended with her being thanked for her honesty and appreciated for how she navigated challenging situations.

From fear of conversation to trusted communicator. That’s what confidence in conversations looks like.

Sometimes my clients end up realising they’re not actually the problem.

One client realised during our work together that it didn’t matter what she did, the environment she was in was toxic. It had eroded her confidence and hidden her natural talents. She needed out.

I supported her to rediscover her sense of self and identity, rebuilding the shattered confidence in a way that felt real, authentic and safe.

Through this process she learned how to trust herself again, to recognise what her intuition was saying and to protect her energy.

The result? A career change, pursuing opportunities that were meaningful, aligned with her values and a natural fit for her strengths. She emerged confident, grounded and clear about what she would (and wouldn’t) accept in her personal life.

My client loved her work. She was passionate, purposeful and believed in what she was doing. But that drive had set her on a fast track to burnout.

She’d been working longer and longer hours, convinced it was the only way to keep up. But of course, the harder she worked, the less effective she became. Decision making faltered, productivity dropped and exhaustion only deepened.

We slowed everything down. Dug deep into her feelings around delegation, breaks and boundaries and then put all three into practise. I was her accountability buddy throughout and the evidence built up quickly: she got more done by doing less.

This shift broke the cycle. From living in burnout to working sustainably for the first time in years. She learned that rest time wasn’t wasted. It was the fuel to better leadership, sharper decisions and renewed confidence in her role.

Rejection hit her hard. Every knockback from a job application felt personal, like proof she wasn’t good enough. Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria had her spiralling into overthinking and self-blame.

What made it worse was the shame. She was a senior leader with years of management experience, and yet she couldn’t solve this problem.

We worked on reframing that. The rejections weren’t about her skills but part of the process. Instead of burning out trying to control every outcome, she learned to set boundaries around her energy and balance accountability with compassion.

By the end she wasn’t avoiding rejection. She was weathering it. She applied for more roles, expanded her network and even explored volunteering opportunities to showcase her skills to a new audience.

Her words said it all: “I’m surprised that 6 sessions could take me so far in such a short amount of time.”