What Academic Research Says

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• Employees are often the most valuable assets of an organization (Fulmer, & Ployhart, 2014). 
• Focus on managerial behaviors as they interact with neurodiverse employees.
• The term neurodiverse was initiated by Autism community (Jaarsma & Welin, 2012) 
• Neurodiverse (ND) Related Conditions include:
• ------------------Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD)
• ------------------Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)
• ------------------Asperger’s Syndrome
• ------------------Bipolar disorder
• ------------------Individual behaviors not included in a formal diagnosis  
• The manager is the central figure in the relationship and initiates the process of developing the relationship Gardener et al. (2005) 
• Authentic Leadership Theory (ALT) focuses on key concepts including empathy, care, respect, open-mindedness, and mutuality (Berkovich, 2014)
• Leader-Member Exchange Theory (LMX) is founded in the unique interplay of the manager and employee and the relationship created between the two parties (Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995).
• More effective employment experiences for neurodiverse adults may contribute to decreasing social conditions such as unemployment, homeless and incarceration which are up to 8 times higher in neurodiverse adults than neurotypical adults (McCarthy, Chaplin, Underwood, Forrester, Hayward, Sabet, & ... Murphy, 2016)

• Diversity generally applies to how people look – such as race or gender – or their belief system such as religion, or other visually apparent facets of their identity. 
• Neurodiversity represents a wide spectrum of how (not what) people think or process information.
• Neurodiversity is not a socioeconomic, geopolitical or demographic difference but instead a mental processing characteristic
• How people solve problems - logical or creative? systematic or random? – is one aspect of neurodiversity.
• Neurodiverse is a different term from neurodiversity in that neurodiversity is the range of the behaviors from typical to different while neurodiverse is the contrary to neurotypical (Wille & Sajous-Brady, 2018)
• Where most people in a workgroup may be same type of thinkers, the person who doesn’t really fit in, who is different from everyone else, may be neurodiverse. 
• Neurodiverse children are different through conditions such as autism, ADHD, Asbergers syndrome, or, perhaps they are highly creative or technical. They may be very quiet, or loud, be awkward and have difficulty in sports. They may have few friends and lack graceful social skills. They grow up, go to work and maintain many of those behaviors in the workplace. They may be overly emotional or intensely focused.
• Because they are different, they may struggle to comply with standard work protocols, or at least privately may work harder to appear to comply. 
• Management studies lack differentiation of participants by neurostyle
• Number of people diagnosed with neurodiverse conditions is increasing (Baio, Wiggins, Christensen, et al., 2018; Visser et al., 2015). 
• 4-5% of the adult population has ADHD (Kessler et al., 2006)
• 44% of neurodiverse children have high intelligence (Baio, Wiggins, Christensen, et al., 2018). 
• There is no one set of behavior that defines neurodiverse behavior
• Behaviors consistent with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) contribute to identification of neurodiverse employees
• Unique challenges include time management, organization, getting along with peers, making careless mistakes, impulsive behavior, unstable moods, and antisocial behaviors (Pitts, Mangle, & Asherson, 2015). 
• Human resource departments lack understanding on helping neurodiverse employees succeed (Halbesleben, Wheeler, & Shanine, 2013)
• Organizations incur costs, and reduced revenues, if they are ineffective in managing employees.
• Recommendations that are effective on children may not be effective with adults

• People with ADHD often fail to focus, become distracted, are impulsive and may be too quick to make decisions (Dipeolu, Hargrave, & Storlie, 2015). 
• No standard presentation – different in everyone
• Often undiagnosed (Tomkowicz, & Fiorentino, 2017)
• Incurable & often inherited (Thapar et al., 2013)
• Comorbid conditions include:  oppositional defiant disorder (50%), mood disorder (38%) bipolar disorder (20%) anxiety (30%) learning disorders (50%) sleep disorders (25%) or other conditions (National Resource Center on ADHD)
• Twice Exceptional – adds confusion to outsiders
• Workplace challenges include:  overlook details, appear not to listen, interrupt, are easily distracted, distract others, lack follow through (National Institute of Mental Health, 2018); Social challenges (Gjervan et al., 2016); Emotions: Passionate & sensitive; Confrontational or driven
• Workplace advantages include: Hyperfocus (positives and negatives); Passionate about things they care about; Creative ideas and solutions
• 32% of 16,000 workaholics had ADHD (Andreassen, Griffiths, Sinha, Hetland, & Pallesen, 2016)
• High energy towards personally important goals (Nall & Legg, 2016)