Overview

What if the biggest leadership challenge is not managing others, but leading while hiding who you truly are? For many neurodivergent women and leaders, success at work comes at a cost. Workplaces reward fitting in, not thinking differently. Traits like focus, creativity, empathy, directness, and intensity are often treated as problems to manage rather than strengths to value. The result is familiar to many high-performing leaders. Outstanding results on paper, paired with exhaustion, burnout, and emotional fatigue behind the scenes. Unmasking Leadership explores the hidden cost of conformity at work and introduces a new, research-supported model for neuroinclusive leadership. Blending lived experience with organisational psychology, leadership research, and neurodiversity scholarship, this book shows what leadership can look like when authenticity, psychological safety, and wellbeing are placed at the centre. Written for autistic, ADHD, AuDHD, dyslexic, and otherwise neurodivergent leaders, this book examines why traditional leadership models often fail neurodivergent thinkers and how outdated expectations can be replaced with inclusive, flexible practices that support both performance and sustainability. It unpacks how masking develops, why it becomes exhausting over time, and how it contributes to perfectionism, over-adapting, emotional regulation challenges, and invisible burnout. Unmasking Leadership also speaks directly to the experience of women in leadership who are expected to be warm but not emotional, visionary but never scattered, confident but never too much. It challenges narrow definitions of professionalism and leadership success, and offers practical alternatives grounded in real workplace contexts. Inside, you will find practical tools to recognise burnout and dysregulation, build sustainable routines, and regulate effectively in high-pressure environments. You will learn how to turn empathy into everyday leadership action through inclusive habits that support communication, psychological safety, sensory needs, and diverse ways of working. Each chapter includes reflective prompts, scripts, and checklists designed for real workplaces, not idealised ones. The book also includes real stories from leaders navigating ADHD, autism, dyslexia, and AuDHD while driving meaningful cultural change. It draws on evidence-based insights from researchers such as Amy Edmondson, alongside organisational and neurodiversity research, to present a leadership model built on authenticity, belonging, flexibility, and wellbeing as drivers of performance rather than barriers to it. Unmasking Leadership is for neurodivergent leaders who never felt like they belonged at the table, and for those building new tables altogether. It is for HR, DEI, People and Culture, and health and safety professionals ready to move beyond awareness into systemic action. It is for managers and executives who want to create cultures where different brains can thrive without masking. By the end of this book, you will have the language, frameworks, and confidence to lead in a way that does not cost you your wellbeing. You will understand how to unmask safely, set boundaries that protect your energy, and lead from a place of honesty rather than performance.

Full Product Details

9781067133795

Table of Contents

Reviews

Sarah Summers - Amazon This book made me laugh, nod aggressively, and feel far too seen in the best possible way. It somehow manages to be smart, reassuring, and gently chaotic, like a very good conversation with someone who gets it. I came for the insight and stayed for the humour, plus the feeling that my brain had finally been understood. Reviewer Amazon This book has a clear intention and plenty of solid observations, especially around leadership habits that often go unquestioned. I appreciated the direct tone and the effort to strip away surface level thinking. Petra Agthe - Linkedin This is one of the most remarkable books I have read this year - Unmasking Leadership by Nicola Knobel. Although it is not a book written specifically from a veterinary angle, it connects many things that are already known in the veterinary world, including: ✅ We know that psychological safety matters ✅ We know that we need more inclusive workplaces ...plus it is well-written and evidence-based. Matthew Scowcroft - Amazon This book is ostensibly about how neurodivergent people are excluded from leadership roles and how that is limiting to both workplaces and those who are neurodivergent. It takes a fresh look at old and well-worn dogma about what leadership should look like and what characteristics are essential for a leader to have. Like any good forward-thinking manual, it dismantles that tired thinking logically and in an accessible and entertaining way. It also draws on a huge amount of recent research to reach those conclusions, making it solidly grounded in academic rigour. However, that description doesn't really do the book justice. Under the surface, it's also about how society fails to consider the viewpoints and qualities of people who see the world in a fundamentally different way, and how much we're losing out by doing that. In an increasingly polarised world, that is a vital contribution to the growing literature seeking to reverse that polarisation trend. Nicola writes with clarity and humour. You can read the whole book (and you absolutely should!), but thanks to judicious repetition, it also works as a manual to dip into at any chapter to support day-to-day management practise. This is an eye-opening, entertaining, wonderful read, and I thoroughly recommend it.

Author Information

Nicola Knobel is a late-diagnosed autistic and ADHD people-first leader, professional, and neurodiversity advocate. With nearly two decades of experience leading safety and risk across some of New Zealand's most trusted organisations, she's built a career on translating complex systems into approaches that genuinely work for people.Holding a Master of Laws, Post Graduates in Environmental Management, Occupational Safety, and Business Administration, Nicola combines academic insight with lived experience to challenge how workplaces define success, safety, and leadership. Her research and published work explore topics such as psychological safety, inclusive leadership, and the changing nature of work for neurodivergent professionals.She is also a sought-after speaker and panelist, known for her honest, human approach to conversations about leadership, inclusion, and safety.When she's not writing or speaking, Nicola leads national programmes in safety and risk strategy and creates digital content that helps others better understand and support neurodivergent minds.

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