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Being an Autistic Manager is hard!

Vickstick

I'm late diagnosed Autistic (diagnosed July 24) and ADHD (Dec 23) so really new to everything. Add top that the fact that I got promoted to Admin Lead of my department in January this year. The new role has mostly been fairly comfortable. My line manager and HR department are fully aware of my diagnosis and on the whole are very supportive. I manage a small team of 6 admin and work with other departments to supply support for them as they need it. Lately, though, I have been feeling overwhelmed, due to the higher ups demands and my inability to say no (people pleaser - YAY!). There have also been some issues with some members of my team and with another manager in the company. My RSD is really kicking in and making me so paranoid that I feel like every conversation, low mood, teams message etc; is directly related to me. I've not wanted to go to work for the last 2 weeks and am on the verge of quitting every five minutes! I had to cancel my counselling due to money issues, and haven't got round to booking back in again yet. Someone talk me down off of this quitting ledge, cos I'm pretty sure that if I don't work this out, I'll be planning my new career as a florist or circus performer by the end of the day!

Parents

  • I'm sorry to hear that you're struggling - I can empathise, as I often struggled when I was working (I'm retired now). 

    One organisation I worked at offered a large range of training courses for staff, and I did communication skills and assertiveness skills, which I found helpful. I also did a team leader course and one of the tasks I was given was to ask colleagues for feedback, and although most was positive, one senior manager pointed out that I did not ask those in my team for suggestions.

    So perhaps you could try these ideas:

    - Ask your HR department if counselling is available through your company, and if not ask if you can have a chat with a member of the HR team about how you are feeling, and about the issues you are having with the other manager and feeling overwhelmed.

    - Have a team meeting and ask the members of your team for feedback on how things are going and if they have any suggestions for improvements.

    - See if you can do an assertiveness training course. If not, or if it will take a while to arrange, here is a link to some advice about how to become more assertive:

    https://productiveprofessional.com/be-more-assertive-at-work/

    I hope things work out ok for you.

  • in reply to Lotus
    Lotus said:
    Ask your HR department if counselling is available through your company

    HR might call it the "employee assistance programme" (EAP).

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