Hidden neurodivergence in Headteachers: The cost of coping in school leadership

I have worked with many neurodivergent headteachers and there are enough of us that it matters. It seems obvious to me that naming this would be a good place to start when exploring how we create cultures of true belonging in schools 

Leadership in schools is still too often framed through a narrow set of criteria of what competence should look like. Headteachers are expected to be calm but not intense, visionary but not unconventional, relational but not emotionally honest, organised but without visible effort, resilient but never overwhelmed. It’s unrealistic if we are to make the role sustainable for anyone and impossible for colleagues who are neurodivergent. 

For those of us whose minds work differently, leadership can become a lifelong performance of translating ourselves into something more acceptable. That performance has a cost. 

There are many headteachers in schools who appear highly capable while privately they are running on fumes. I know this as I have coached quite a few headteacher who experience this. Headteachers can hold ten competing priorities in their mind at once, solve three crises before lunch and make brave decisions under pressure and we praise them for it (Isn’t that what we mean by ‘exceptional leader’?). 

But what is less visible is the rebound. By this I mean the exhaustion after masking all day and the sleeplessness after carrying everyone else’s needs. The mental load of the constant self-monitoring is huge for neurodivergent headteachers and many also experience shame and emotional crashes in private. They become experts in coping so early and so well that no one notices they are coping at all. 

Education rewards outputs. If deadlines are met, assemblies delivered, budgets balanced, decisions made and outcomes improved, few people ask what it took internally. 

Working as a coach, together with my own experience, has taught me that ‘high functioning’ can simply mean functioning through adrenaline or anxiety while sacrificing health, relationships and rest. Some leaders build entire careers on emergency energy because praise becomes part of the trap. 

Many traits associated with neurodivergence can be powerful assets in headship. To name a few: 

• pattern recognition
• strategic thinking
• creativity under constraint
• moral clarity
• urgency and momentum
• hyperfocus in crisis
• deep empathy
• innovation
• willingness to challenge broken systems
• seeing what others overlook

Schools often need exactly these qualities in their leaders. Unfortunately, organisations often admire what leaders achieve but judge or try to correct the traits or ways of working that made those achievements possible. 

I experienced this constantly as a headteacher. I was labelled ‘full on’, ‘intense’, ‘marmite’ and (a personal favourite) ‘too passionate’ by my colleagues. I was advised by my seniors to ‘tone myself down’ in meetings so that others would find me ‘less intimidating’. 

I hear similar stories now in coaching conversations and often wonder what this says about our proximity to true inclusion in education. 

For some of us, diagnosis arrives late. After years of wondering why things that looked easy for others felt disproportionately hard. Years spent overcompensating and assuming a personal flaw where there was, in fact, a different operating system. 

My experience is that diagnosis brings relief, but also grief. Grief for the years spent mislabelled, for the self-criticism and for how many people benefited from my coping while my family and I paid for it privately. 

I’m currently in the messy middle that is titration on stimulant medication. Titration can be challenging because finding the right dose often involves trial and error, and each adjustment takes time before you know whether it is helping. I’ve been dealing with side effects such as appetite loss, mood swings (my family are very patient with my impatience and short-tempered outbursts), anxiety and headaches. It is beginning to settle but I can see why many people give up part way through. I have wondered, more than once, if titration would be possible for a serving headteacher. 

For some neurodivergent leaders, diagnosis marks a shift in relationships too. Our colleagues (and sometimes our friends and family) only knew the endlessly available version of us and become less comfortable with the updated version that starts to emerge. More brutally put, some people were more comfortable while our distress remained invisible. 

When you begin to ask for clarity, rest, support, flexibility or space, you may be told you have changed. And in some ways, you have. All of this can be very confusing and sad. 

If education wants sustainable leadership, we need to widen our understanding of professionalism and wonder what it might look like to start recognising neurodivergence in senior leadership, not just pupils? 

This starts with ending the glamorisation of overwork and a shift towards valuing different communication styles. For colleagues with ADHD, we must reduce unnecessary bureaucracy that drains executive function. For autistic colleagues, we need greater understanding that consistency can look different across nervous systems. For all headteachers, we must prioritise recovery, not just performance. 

This requires governors and trusts to commit to inclusive leadership cultures, because we cannot preach inclusion for children while punishing it in our adults. 

I drafted this poem about my difference and my friend and colleague, Tessa encouraged me to share it with you, which is where the inspiration for this article started. So here it is: 

A Different Current 

I was not made defective,
just distinct.

The fault is not within my mind,
but in a world that asks
every mind to fit the mould.

A star is not inappropriate
for shining brightly.

My thoughts move like rivers,
wild, winding, bright,
carrying storms and clarity
in the same breath.

I am not broken
for blooming in my own season,
I am not less
for feelings bigger
and bolder
than you understand.

Let the world grow wider.
Let it make room
for minds that leap,
wander, wonder
and expand into our own light.

I am still here,
still learning, still becoming,
still wholly my own.

Meet me gently,
join me if you dare. 

To the Headteacher reading this at 11:47pm. The one with the tabs open, replaying a meeting from earlier and wondering why everything feels harder than it seems to for everyone else. 

I want to tell you that I see you carrying brilliance and fatigue in equal measure. You are not failing because leadership feels costly. You have simply been succeeding in an environment that charges you double. 

There are headteachers whose schools have been held together by minds that do not fit the mould. The next chapter of school leadership should not require those minds to break themselves in order to belong anymore. We were not meant to all be the same and so perhaps the bravest leadership of all is no longer pretending otherwise. 

If we want schools that recognise and cater for difference rather than schools that try to ‘manage’ inclusion, then we need spaces to think differently together. We need to find ways to sustain rather than deplete our headteachers. 

That is why this June we are gathering leaders, educators and changemakers for Destino Live: Creating Inclusive Change, our first ever Destino conference. We will help you formulate a plan for building a genuinely inclusive culture in your school. We are not interested in inclusion slogans; we want to talk about inclusion as practice and courageous change. 

I believe that the future of education cannot be built on burnout, masking and outdated definitions of professionalism. People willing to widen the path have to drive the change that is needed.