But it’s true so why are you arguing??

A pitfall I’ve often fallen into at work is assuming that because something is true it doesn’t need to be advocated for. Or indeed that the facts are always a winning argument. It doesn’t make sense to my autistic brain that emotional considerations have to be dealt with as well but it’s definitely true. I’ve been picked up in feedback a number of times for having failed to “take people on a journey” with me. This sounds like I’m about to condemn the neurotypical world for being illogical but actually I’m just as emotion-driven myself – I just autistically forget that it’s an aspect of humanity when it comes to other people. For example, I know my buying decisions are influenced by whether the package is a nice colour as much as by whether the product is good quality – that’s not logical. But then I get annoyed when those around me aren’t logical. There are definitely a few pitfalls that autistic leaders need to avoid like that, and I’d like to start getting them better known.

As an example of the autistic “but it’s logical!” pitfall, imagine being part of a team deciding what colour to redecorate the office. Imagine further that research has shown that the best colour to decorate offices is pale blue in order to create a calm atmosphere for clear thinking. (I’m totally making this up – do NOT take interior design tips from me.) I would then say: “research shows that pale blue is the best colour for offices – shall I buy the paint?” Colleagues might then come back with:

“hey – we haven’t discussed it yet!” or

“I hate pale blue!” or

“yellow always makes me feel cheerful!” or even

“I’ve found this lovely wallpaper with tropical birds on…”

I with my autistic brain, would respond “blue is the best colour – research shows it” and wonder why the discussion was continuing. I’d have made two mistakes here – one of which was failing to allow time for discussion. The first person might have been perfectly happy with pale blue, but me having bounced them into a decision without that discussion time has put their back up.

The second mistake would have been imagining that one set of evidence defined the correct answer. It may well be that on average pale blue is the best colour for offices (again – I’m making this up – don’t @ me with Farrow & Ball charts) but the second person to speak hates blue – making them spend their working life in an office painted a colour they hate might be deeply unfair. I’ve also assumed too much on the basis of one piece of hypothetical research. Pale blue may create a calm atmosphere for clear thinking, but possibly what we actually need in our office is a vibrant cheerful atmosphere, which might come from another colour. Or indeed I might have assumed far too much in going straight to paint colours – perhaps actually wallpaper is worth considering?

Being equally emotional myself (although I might not admit it), and also less skilled at reading cues from non-literal speech, I’m likely to dig in at this point – I didn’t really care about paint colours before but now I’ve decided pale blue is the best and everyone else is kicking off, I’m going stick to my guns to assert my authority or to avoid change, but I’m going to rationalise it as everyone else being illogical.

Of course anyone could fall into that trap, but as an autistic person I think it’s particularly likely to happen to me. Given that I don’t really like small talk or non-goal-directed conversation, the “allowing time for discussion before taking the decision, bearing in mind I think it’s blindingly obvious what the right decision is” part can be very hard. But as I’ve attempted to illustrate in my silly paint colours example, if that time for discussion doesn’t happen, new evidence may not emerge, hidden assumptions may not be revealed and, in particular, all the neurotypical people – which is most people – get annoyed. I might have thought I had the right answer but without handling the emotional aspects of decision making no-one will agree with me, and without listening to all the people with an interest I might make a completely wrong decision anyway.