The Hidden Labor of Fitting In: Why Understanding Coping and Masking in Neurodivergent Individuals Is Crucial for True Inclusive Leadership
- Apr 5
- 11 min read
Gentle leadership begins where assumptions end—and real inclusion begins.
In a world built on neurotypical standards, many neurodivergent individuals become experts in a hidden art: appearing “fine” while doing invisible backflips just to function.
From meticulously planned to-do systems to practiced smiles in meetings, these coping and masking strategies are often misunderstood, praised, or entirely overlooked.
But what looks like high performance may actually be high-stakes survival.
In this blog, based on my leadership course Gentle Leading for Neurodivergent Minds, we break down what these behaviors really are, why they matter, and how leaders can stop rewarding the mask—and start welcoming the mind behind it. 💡
🔍 Introduction: The Invisible Work of Fitting In (A Full-Time Job, No Pay, Zero Benefits)
Imagine having to run every social interaction through an internal Google Translate—except the language is “neurotypical,” the grammar changes daily, and the stakes are your job, reputation, or sense of belonging.
Welcome to the daily reality of many neurodivergent individuals, who navigate workplaces, schools, and leadership structures not built with their minds in mind. And because showing up as they are often leads to confusion, misjudgment, or flat-out exclusion, they adapt.
Constantly.
This adaptation comes in two main flavors: coping (strategies to manage a world that’s not designed for your processing style) and masking (strategies to appear like you’re managing, even when you're not).
These aren’t quirky habits—they’re survival skills.
And they take energy.
Lots of it.
💡 Example?
The autistic team member who scripts every conversation ahead of time, but gets praised for being “so polished.”
The ADHD founder with 17 productivity apps (only one of which they remember the password to) and still gets called “disorganized.”
The dyslexic leader who avoids whiteboards like vampires avoid sunlight, all while “winging it” in strategy meetings.
Masking and coping often make someone look functional while they’re barely holding it together.
Think: “smiling on Zoom while your internal battery is at 2%.”
💼 Why This Matters—Especially for Leaders, Teams, and Culture Architects
Understanding coping and masking isn’t just “nice to have.”
It’s essential if you want to lead humans—not just headcounts.
Because when a neurodivergent employee is over-preparing, under-responding, hyper-planning, or appears totally fine (while internally spiraling)?
That’s not overreaction.
That’s over-adaptation.
When we interpret these signals correctly, we move from managing people to actually supporting them.
From rewarding masks to recognizing needs. From forcing sameness to welcoming difference.
🧠 Compassionate leadership starts where assumption ends.
So let’s demystify what these behaviors really look like— What they offer. What they cost.
And how you, as a leader, colleague, or culture-shifter, can spot them even if you’ve never masked a day in your life.
Because once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
And that’s the beginning of change.
🚫 Pitfalls of Misreading the Signals
When we don’t understand coping and masking, we don’t just miss the nuance—we risk reinforcing harm.
Here’s how that plays out:
❌ Mistaking quiet for disinterest
That reserved colleague might be overstimulated, not disengaged.
❌ Rewarding masking as “professionalism”
“She’s always so polished!” → She had three meltdowns off-camera to get there.
❌ Interpreting burnout as incompetence
Chronic exhaustion isn’t laziness—it’s the cost of navigating an environment that doesn’t fit.
❌ Overlooking the invisible labor of “just showing up”
For some, attending a meeting is the cognitive equivalent of climbing Everest in business casual.
✅ Why Awareness Is a Superpower (Especially for Leaders)
When you understand what’s really going on beneath the surface, you unlock powerful shifts:
💬 Psychological safety and trust skyrocket when people don’t have to pretend to be “fine.”
🧠 Creative problem-solving flourishes when different processing styles are welcomed, not erased.
📈 Retention improves when neurodivergent team members aren’t burning out to blend in.
🛠️ Support becomes strategic, not just reactive—because leaders know what to look for and how to respond.
🛠️ What Is Coping?
Coping, in the neurodivergent world, is less about “handling stress” and more about navigating daily life like a backstage tech crew running a Broadway show nobody sees.
It’s the mental, emotional, and behavioral strategies neurodivergent individuals use to stay afloat in environments that often feel like they were built by—and for—someone else entirely.
Whether it’s managing social overload, sensory chaos, or cognitive roadblocks, coping is the unsung labor of adaptation.
💡 And here’s the thing: Coping isn’t bad.
In fact, it’s often a sign of brilliant self-awareness and adaptability.
But when it's constant—when it becomes the default instead of the exception—it can drain energy faster than a dozen open browser tabs with autoplay videos.
🧠 What Coping Actually Looks Like in Real Life
🧩 Autism
Clinging to rigid routines like lifelines—not because you’re inflexible, but because surprise = stress, and unpredictability can feel like walking through a minefield blindfolded.
🧠 ADHD
Creating five color-coded to-do lists, syncing them across Notion, Trello, and the planner you swore by last week...
Then forgetting why you opened your laptop.(Hi again, dopamine.)
✍️ Dyslexia
Dodging written tasks like they bite. Choosing voice notes over reading, and replying to emails with just enough ambiguity to pass for informed.
(“Sounds great—let’s circle back!”)
🧮 Dyscalculia
Staring at a price tag like it’s a funhouse mirror:Does that say €87.60… or €8,760?
Answer: both. And neither.
🌊 Highly Sensitive Person (HSP)
Packing your bag like a survival kit—earplugs, blue-light glasses, soft hoodie—because fluorescent lights + corporate chit-chat = slow sensory death.
🦉 Giftedness
Sidelining your hyper-specific fascinations to avoid the “What does quantum linguistics have to do with brunch?” look.
(Spoiler: everything.)
😅 Social Masking
Saying “yes” to every invite—even though you’re one calendar alert away from collapse—because being “normal” feels safer than being real.
💬 Bottom Line?
Coping is not weakness.
It’s creative adaptation in systems that weren’t built for your brain.
It’s invisible labor, emotional bandwidth management, and psychological gymnastics—all rolled into a polite smile.
✅ It’s clever.
✅ It’s exhausting.
✅ And it’s time we stopped expecting it as a default.
🔍 The better we get at recognizing coping, the closer we get to building workplaces, schools, and cultures where coping isn’t required just to belong.
🎭 What Is Masking?
Masking (aka: The Emotional Olympics You Didn’t Know You Were Watching)
If coping is the art of managing overwhelm, masking is the performance of blending in. It's the social equivalent of holding your breath underwater—sometimes for hours.
Masking is when neurodivergent individuals consciously or unconsciously camouflage their natural behaviors to fit into neurotypical norms.
Not to impress. Not to deceive. But to be accepted.
To not be misunderstood. To avoid judgment, exclusion, or worse—being labeled “difficult,” “weird,” “too much,” or “not leadership material.”
And while it can be incredibly effective in the short term (hello, job interviews), over time it’s like running a computer on 30 open tabs and 5% battery—eventually, something crashes.
🔍 Masking in the Wild: What It Looks Like
Let’s break it down:
👁️ Forcing Eye Contact:
Not because it feels right—but because you’ve been told that’s what confident people do.
🗣️ Memorizing Social Scripts:
Like, “How was your weekend?” → “Good, thanks! Yours?” → Smile. Nod.
Pretend you didn’t rehearse that entire exchange in your head 12 times.
🔇 Suppressing Tics (Tourette's):
Holding back natural vocal or motor expressions for fear of being stared at, even if it feels like pressure in a shaken soda can.
🧢 Hiding Sensory Sensitivities:
Enduring scratchy office chairs, blinking lights, or that one coworker’s perfume without saying a word—because you don’t want to seem “high-maintenance.”
😐 Smiling While Dissociating:
Because “I’m struggling right now” doesn’t feel like an acceptable status update in your Tuesday team sync.
🤫 Stifling Enthusiasm:
Keeping your love for quantum physics, historical costume design, or competitive spreadsheet formatting to yourself so you don’t get the “uh... cool?” reaction.
🎢 The Cost of Constant Camouflage
On the outside?
Someone appears composed, engaged, and “fine.”
On the inside?
They might be:
Burnt out from monitoring every facial expression and tone of voice.
Disconnected from their authentic self.
Unsure who they are when they’re not performing.
Over time, masking can lead to:
❌ Emotional exhaustion
❌ Anxiety and depression
❌ Identity confusion
❌ Missed support—because “you seem so high-functioning!”
💡 Why It Matters (Especially for Leaders & Allies)
If you're neurotypical, here’s the kicker:
You might never know someone is masking—unless you know what to look for.
And even then, it’s not about calling people out.
It’s about making it safe enough for them to drop the mask if they choose to.
🎯 Leadership Insight:
If someone on your team is always “on,” overly agreeable, or avoids giving honest feedback—it might not be a personality quirk.
It might be survival mode.
✅ Build psychological safety.
✅ Model authenticity (yes, even when it’s messy).
✅ Celebrate different communication styles.
✅ Ask how someone works best, not just what they can deliver.
Because when people feel safe to show up as themselves—they show up better.
🧩 Masking & Coping Aren’t Personal Failings—They’re Systemic Responses
(And no, the fix isn’t “just be yourself.”)
Let’s get real for a moment.
If someone feels they have to suppress, shrink, or strategize their way through the day just to be accepted, that’s not a personal issue—it’s a red flag about the environment they’re in.
Masking and coping are two sides of the same survival strategy:
→ One hides the difference.
→ The other builds scaffolding around it.And most people—especially neurodivergent folks—do both, often without even realizing it.
🧠 These aren't weaknesses.
They’re adaptations.
Adaptations to a world that often confuses “professionalism” with conformity…That praises confidence but punishes sensitivity…That rewards output but ignores the invisible labor behind it.
🗯️ Instead of asking:
“Why are they so quiet/distant/extra/hard to read?”
Ask this:💡 “What signals told them their authentic self wasn’t safe here?”
Whether someone is forcing eye contact, color-coding their calendar within an inch of its life, pretending they understood the spreadsheet when numbers feel like a foreign language, or smiling through sensory overload—they’re not trying to be difficult.
They’re trying to belong.
🚨 Pitfalls of Rewarding the Mask (or the High-Functioning Coping)
Let’s say someone always shows up polished, agreeable, responsive, and prepared to the teeth.
👏 They’re praised. Promoted. Held up as the gold standard.
But what you didn’t see was:
💥 the 3-hour script rehearsal for one meeting
💥 the skipped meals to stay on task
💥 the deep crash afterward that no one asked about
Rewarding the result while ignoring the cost can:
❌ Reinforce internalized ableism
❌ Discourage people from asking for what they need
❌ Push individuals into burnout
❌ Perpetuate inequity under the banner of “excellence”
❌ Reward silence instead of support-seeking
🛠️ So What’s the Real Fix?
(Hint: It’s not telling someone to “just be yourself.” That’s not safe advice without systemic support.)
We don’t need people to unmask for our comfort.
We need to change the room so they don’t have to mask or over-cater to survive.
💡 How Leaders and Allies Can Create That Shift:
✅ Model humanity, not perfection.
Normalize mistakes. Say when you're overwhelmed. Share your learning curves. Signal that vulnerability = safety.
✅ Stop equating performance with wellness.
Just because someone’s thriving on paper doesn’t mean they’re thriving in reality. Ask. Check in. Assume less.
✅ Design with diverse brains in mind.
Offer agendas ahead of meetings. Provide alternatives to real-time responses. Build in recovery time between high-stim tasks.
✅ Ask better questions.
Instead of “Is everything okay?” try:
🔹 “What parts of this process work for you—and what’s costing you energy?”
🔹 “Are there ways we can structure this differently so you don’t have to carry so much of the load alone?”
✅ Celebrate when people share how they really work.
When someone says:
“I process best with time to think.”“I need a quiet day after high-stimulation events.”
That’s not an inconvenience—that’s leadership in motion.
🎯 Final Insight: Inclusion Is the Starting Line. Liberation Is the Goal.
We’re not just here to “make room” at the table.
We’re here to rebuild the damn table—so no one has to shape-shift to earn a seat.
Masking and coping might be invisible.But their effects? They’re loud. They’re costly.And they’re 100% preventable—with awareness, empathy, and intentional design.
The future of leadership isn’t about how well people can fit in.
It’s about how freely they can show up—with their full brilliance, quirks, rhythms, and all.
Because when people stop having to hide, they start having room to shine. ✨
👀 How to Spot Masking (If You’re Neurotypical)
Let’s be real: masking is meant to be invisible. That’s the whole point.
It’s a carefully crafted social armor designed to keep someone “in the game” without drawing attention to their internal reality.
So if you’re neurotypical—or even if you’re neurodivergent but not in the same lane—how do you begin to recognize what’s beneath the surface?
Start here:
🧠 Coping & Masking Across Neurodivergent Profiles
Neurodivergent Profile | Common Coping Behaviors | Common Masking Behaviors | Subtle or Overlooked Signs |
Autism | Rigid routines, scripting interactions, info-dumping to self-soothe | Forcing eye contact, mirroring social norms, suppressing stimming | “Yes-ing” everything, then shutting down later; smiling while dissociating |
ADHD | Building complex to-do lists, over-preparing, “urgency hacking” | Acting overly organized, hiding impulsivity or distractibility | Always “busy,” but producing last-minute; constant jokes to deflect seriousness |
Dyslexia | Audio-based workarounds, avoiding writing-heavy roles | Nodding through written instructions, outsourcing reading tasks silently | Vague contributions in writing-based settings; brilliant in conversation |
Tourette Syndrome | Avoiding social settings, delaying speaking, suppressing triggers | Holding in tics (often with physical strain), avoiding group settings | Repetitive throat clearing or blinking, leaving rooms “to stretch” |
Dyscalculia | Avoiding number-heavy tasks, memorizing procedures | Faking confidence in budgeting/data meetings, using generic phrases | Excelling in everything—except “casual” math talk; laughing off errors |
HSP (Highly Sensitive Person) | Scouting quiet spots, tightly planning to avoid sensory overload | Pushing through noisy, chaotic settings without speaking up | “Disappearing” socially after events; chronic low-grade fatigue |
Giftedness | Downplaying ideas, simplifying speech, hiding intensity | Avoiding “too many” questions, acting disinterested in deep topics | Looking bored or distracted in group settings; secretly working on 5 side projects |
Anxiety Disorders | Overthinking interactions, perfectionism, avoidance | Appearing ultra-competent or agreeable, suppressing panic | Always volunteering to “take it from here”; often apologizing unnecessarily |
OCD | Pre-checking work repeatedly, building rigid systems | Hiding compulsions, avoiding disclosing intrusive thoughts | Meticulous detail that borders on obsession; struggle when routines change |
🚨 Signs Someone May Be Masking:
Behavior | What You See | What Might Be Happening |
The Always-Fine Colleague | “All good!” responses, even in tough times | Emotionally suppressing distress out of fear of judgment or rejection |
Hyper-Polite, Never-Disruptive | Excessive niceness, avoids disagreement | People-pleasing to stay safe or avoid conflict due to past invalidation |
Over-Prepared, Over-Polished | Picture-perfect deliverables | Hours of extra work to appear “on top of it,” driven by masking perfectionism |
Never Requests Help | Silent under pressure, won’t delegate | Fear of being seen as incompetent or incapable due to internalized ableism |
Low Error but Low Energy | High consistency but visible fatigue | Burnout from constant emotional self-monitoring and suppression |
No Stimming, Ever | Always still, quiet, “collected” | Actively suppressing natural self-regulation (e.g., movement, fidgeting, vocal tics) |
Socially 'Normal' but Vague | Smiles, nods, vague responses | Masking confusion or sensory overload during interactions |
Never Needs a Break (Until They Vanish) | Appears invincible… until a sudden disappearance or health issue | Masking until total shutdown or burnout requires a forced reset |
🧩 Leadership Insight: Masking ≠ Thriving
If someone never makes a mistake, never pushes back, and never asks for support—don’t assume they’re thriving.
That might be high-functioning masking at work.
💬 Ask yourself:
Is this performance sustainable—or is it survival?
If you’re only praising output and not creating room for process, flexibility, or authentic feedback, people may feel they need to hide their real needs to stay seen as “capable.”
🔍 Instead of Assuming, Try Asking:
“How are you really doing with this pace/project/process?”
“What would make this easier, more manageable, or more you?”
“Are there ways we can work better with how you think and process?”
Remember, the goal isn’t to call people out. It’s to call in environments that don’t require perfection as the price of inclusion.
🎯 Insight:
Masking isn’t lying. It’s a survival skill.
And your ability to spot, respect, and make space for the real person underneath it?
That’s what makes you a leader—not just a manager.
Want a short printable version of this for leadership teams or trainings?
I can format that too!
🎤 Final Take: We're Not Here to Fix People—We're Here to Rethink the System
So—what’s the solution?
It's not telling neurodivergent folks to “just be themselves” in a space that punishes authenticity.
It's about transforming the space so they don’t have to hide in the first place.
💡 Real change starts when we stop asking people to adapt and start asking how systems can flex.
This means:
✅ Trauma-informed, neurodiversity-affirming leadership
✅ Flexible, human-centered communication & sensory practices
✅ Empathy over assumptions, curiosity over compliance
✅ Unmasking not only allowed—but honored
Inclusion is the starting point.
Liberation?
That’s when people are free to show up as they are—no performance required.
💬 The Real Bottom Line:
If we want brilliance, innovation, and trust—we have to stop rewarding the mask and start building spaces where it’s safe to take it off.
Because the future of leadership isn’t about conformity.
It’s about courage.
“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”— Viktor E. Frankl
✨ Except this time…
We don’t challenge the people.
We challenge the system—so people don’t have to.
Let’s build that world.
✨ Neurodivergent? Leading a team? Just wildly curious?
If you're nodding: we might be a great match.