Introducing Sensitive Leadership
Leadership wasn’t built for people like me.
Whether you’re highly sensitive (HSP), have ADHD, autism, or just consider yourself a neurodivergent thinker — you’ve probably felt like the workplace was designed for robots and not real humans. That is not in your imagination.
Most workplace systems are designed around mechanical principles — the organization is the machine, employees some of its parts. You replace parts as needed to keep the machine running. Inhumane as that is, it’s even more so when you understand the term “well-oiled machine,” which at least suggests that if an owner gives the parts what they need, the parts will do their very best in return. I’m guessing anyone reading this is being asked to bring their own oil to work.
For over 15 years I tried to mold myself to these systems. I masked my sensitivity, smiled through sensory overload. Said yes when I meant no. I got very good at translating my emotional intelligence into business speak so I could be taken seriously, and influence change wherever I could.
The turning point came when I worked under a particularly demanding leader who valued quantity over quality and constant availability over focused work periods. My performance suffered, my anxiety skyrocketed, and I began questioning my career choice entirely. This crisis forced me to reassess not just how I worked, but how I understood my own neurodivergent traits.
That breaking point — or rather my clarity point — is what led me to leave my corporate leadership job and create North of Normal.
The Illusion of Fitting the Mold
Work has always had a mold. Some of us were never going to fit it, but we still tried.
We earned the degrees. We learned the acronyms. We adapted, overextended, and often succeeded — but at great personal cost.
Research shows that 76% of highly sensitive people (HSPs) experience burnout in traditional corporate environments due to overstimulation and emotional labor (HSP Work & Wellness Survey, 2023). Meanwhile, neurodivergent individuals are celebrated in theory for their innovation and systems thinking — yet routinely pushed out of systems that won’t accommodate their needs (Deloitte, 2024).
This contradiction is the quiet violence of modern work: we applaud difference while designing against it.
Leading Against Your Nature
When you lead from assimilation, you:
Ignore signals from your body in favor of inbox urgency
Mistake productivity for alignment
Burn energy translating yourself into a language others understand
Confuse people-pleasing with empathy
Eventually, you lose sight of yourself. The work becomes a mask you wear, and that mask gets thicker every year.
As a highly sensitive leader in HR and organizational development, I once prided myself on systems design and strategic execution. But internally, I was unraveling. Insomnia, digestive issues, persistent tension — all signs that my nervous system was overdrawn.
And still, I was praised. Because in extractive systems, self-neglect looks like dedication.
From Masking to Meaning
That turning point was dramatic. I had to take a leave of absence from work and face myself.
I turned inward. I examined what truly energized me. I studied my patterns, my preferences, and my pain points — the same way I studied team dynamics. Slowly, I began to rebuild around my actual needs.
North of Normal was born from that rebuild.
North of Normal is designed for you. It will help you align your career with your natural strengths, emotional intelligence, and leadership potential. You'll learn how to navigate job selection, leadership roles, career changes, and even entrepreneurship — all while honoring your sensitivity.
Did you know? Whether you've been diagnosed as autistic, ADHD, having synesthesia, or have the traits of HSP or HSS, all of these converge around the trait of sensitivity. It's a spectrum we're all on, so we all have something to gain from looking deeper at this part of ourselves and how it can lead us down the path that fits.
Unlike conventional career advice that often promotes a one-size-fits-all approach, what happens here acknowledges and celebrates your unique neurological makeup. Traditional career posts may suggest pushing through discomfort or masking your true self to fit into corporate cultures — approaches that can lead to burnout, anxiety, and diminished well-being for neurodivergent individuals.
Instead, we'll explore how heightened perception, deep processing abilities, and intuitive understanding can become your greatest professional assets. You'll discover workplaces and roles where your sensitivity becomes your competitive advantage.
Throughout these pages, you'll find practical tools specifically calibrated for neurodivergent minds. The assessments and exercises aren't abstract theories but concrete strategies developed from real-world experiences of successful neurodivergent professionals who have found fulfilling careers without compromising their authentic selves.
Most importantly, this doesn't ask you to change who you are. Rather, it empowers you to build a career that accommodates and leverages your natural wiring.
What Sensitive Leadership Actually Looks Like
Sensitive leadership isn’t a watered-down version of "real" leadership. It’s a different operating system. It looks like:
Leading from intuition, not impulse
Designing roles around strengths, not titles
Practicing transparency as a form of trust-building, not oversharing
Centering values in decision-making, even when it slows things down
It looks like trusting your body when it says this pace is not sustainable.
It looks like creating environments where sensory needs aren’t an afterthought — they’re core design principles.
It’s not leadership despite sensitivity. It’s leadership because of it.
Why This Blog Exists
If any of this feels familiar — the pretending, the pushing, the longing for something more humane — this blog is for you. I’m not writing from a mountaintop. I’m writing from the messy middle of doing it differently.
Here, you’ll find:
Tools and practices for working with your nervous system, not against it
Stories from the field (mine and others) that make you feel less alone
Research-backed perspectives on what actually makes work work for the sensitive and neurodivergent
Reflections to help you reclaim leadership on your own terms
You don’t need to become someone else to be taken seriously. You need to become more of yourself.
A Final Thought (That Might Be the First Step)
There’s no trophy for fitting in. No promotion worth betraying your wiring for.
The world isn’t suffering from a shortage of strong leaders. It’s suffering from a shortage of aligned ones.
The workplace you want? The one where difference is the direction? It doesn’t exist yet.
I believe that’s why you’re here.
Welcome to North of Normal, where Different is the Direction.
Here when you need me - Sira
