Research published by the Lilac Centre shows some of the systemic challenges faced by Neurodivergent Leaders.  Discover how Applied Curiosity can help.

Have you ever felt like the systems around you were designed for someone else entirely?

Like the way information gets shared, the forms you have to fill in, the way meetings are run, the way you are supposed to ask for funding or find a mentor or just figure out what your next step is, all of it feels like it was built with a very specific kind of brain in mind. And that brain is not yours.  You feel these things should be way easier than you actually find them, and other people don’t seem to have the same challenges with them as you do.  These are some of the common experiences for a Neurodivergent Leader.

If you have ever felt that way, I want you to know something important. You were not imagining it, and you are not alone.

I had a corporate career I genuinely loved, the work was interesting, the people were fantastic, and I got to work on some real challenges and make a marked difference.  But the internal systems? Not so much, they nearly broke me. Something as logically straightforward as an expense claim would fill me with a dread I could not entirely explain. I knew it was simple, most people found it easy, but not me.

When I set up my own business, one promise I made to myself was to design my systems around the way my brain actually works. I’m a dyslexic thinker, and that means my brain works differently.  The things I find genuinely difficult, like accounts, I outsource without apology. The things that are all but impossible for me, like proofreading, I get help with. I stopped trying to do things the way everyone else seemed to manage and started building a working life that fit.

It's not something I have really talked about all that much, but business feels so much easier now I am not expending so much energy trying to follow other people's processes and work within systems that just don't work for me.

And now, there is a major report which confirms our experiences and suggests ways forward.

You can download a copy of the full report or listen to the audio version here.

A Report That Shifts the Conversation

In June 2026, Small Business Britain published the LILAC Centre Report, Neurodivergent Entrepreneurship in the UK: Building a Better System for Founders, Businesses and the Economy. It is based on a national survey of more than 600 neurodivergent founders, alongside focus groups and lived-experience interviews. It is one of the most detailed pieces of research into neurodivergent entrepreneurship ever produced in the UK.

As a Dyslexic Thinker and the proud owner of a neurodivergent brain, how we make the world of work more accessible for everyone is something I am passionate about.  I was fortunate enough to be at the launch and have since devoured the report and its findings.

I wanted to share my thoughts and observations to further that cause and highlight how the areas discussed in the report intersect with how I have worked with leaders and founders in the past and how they will continue to do so.

Want to know what stood out to me?  Time to get curious and find out!

For Neurodivergent Leaders, Confidence is Not the Problem, but the System Is.

The research found that 65% of neurodivergent entrepreneurs cited confidence or self-belief as a challenge when starting their business.

I found this statistic very interesting for two reasons.  Firstly, that despite this lack of confidence, these founders have done it anyway, and I love that they have.  Secondly, it would be easy to misunderstand the root cause of that lack of confidence.  Part of a lot of founders' entrepreneurial journey is to experience a lack of confidence from time to time.  But the report is explicit. For the neurodiverse entrepreneur, these challenges are not about intelligence or talent. They reflect systems that erode confidence through repeated friction, inaccessible processes and lack of validation.

Let me say that again, confidence is being eroded by the system. 

As a dyslexic thinker and someone who has spent years learning to understand my own neurodivergent brain, I know this feeling intimately. You apply your considerable intelligence and creativity to navigating a world that keeps asking you to do things the hard way. And after enough of that, you start to wonder if the problem is you.

It is not you.

But here is what I have learned, both from my own experience and from working with leaders over many years. Knowing the system is the problem does not automatically give you back your confidence. You need something practical. You need a process that you can apply to each situation.

That is exactly what using the Applied Curiosity Model does.

The model works as a continuous cycle of three phases: Research, Reflect, React. Each revolution of the cycle builds on the last. You gather information. You make sense of it. You act on it. And then you start again, each time with more knowledge, more insight, and more evidence of your own competence.

Confidence is built in the React phase. Every time you form a hypothesis, test it, and see what happens, you collect evidence that you can do this. Over time, you become more aware of your unique strengths and the impact that you have when you apply them, and that becomes the foundation of genuine, lasting self-belief. 

The Invisible Barrier Neurodivergent Leaders Face

The report identifies a common thread running through every part of its research. Michelle Ovens CBE, Founder and CEO of Small Business Britain, puts it this way in the foreword: the central challenge is "accessing, understanding and communicating information."

Does that resonate? I suspect it does.

Think about the last time you tried to navigate a grant application, or understand the criteria for a funding scheme, or find the right kind of support for where your business is right now. The information exists. It feels like it is everywhere, often in several places. In language that seems designed to confuse rather than clarify.  Finding information is often not a problem, interpreting and understanding its relevance often is, especially for the kinds of brains that make a lot of connections and naturally look for patterns and overlaps.

For neurodivergent founders and leaders, this is not just frustrating. It is exhausting. It consumes cognitive energy that you could be using to do the actual work you are brilliant at.

The Applied Curiosity Model treats information processing as a skill. Not something you either have or do not have, but something you can develop and apply deliberately.

The Research phase is not just about Googling things. It is about knowing how you gather information best, what questions to ask, whose perspective you need, and how to listen in a way that actually gets you what you need. 

The Reflect phase is where you take everything you have gathered and make it yours by adding context and making it make sense. You connect it to everything else you know in a controlled way, and you decide what it means for you and your specific situation.  This building of structured thinking time before taking action is a step many neurodivergent leaders skip, and one which is often the difference between burnout and sustainability

The React Phase is where you turn what you have learned into a hypothesis, which you then test.  When we think of our actions  in terms of experiments, the impact of getting results we did not expect is softened and feels less like a failure, so we need less time to pick ourselves up and try the next experiment.  

For neurodivergent leaders, having a structured way to do this is not a luxury. It is a survival strategy

Burnout Is Not a Personal Failure for Neurodivergent Leaders, But It Needs Addressing.

Here is a finding that I think every neurodivergent founder needs to read and then read again.

79% of neurodivergent founders face workload management or burnout challenges as they grow.

That is nearly four out of five. And the report is clear: burnout is not the result of individual weakness. It is the result of systems that place excessive demands on founders without adequate support.

So what do we do with that?

Because here is the thing. Understanding that burnout is structural does not make the burnout go away. You still need to find a way to manage your energy, pace your work, and build a sustainable rhythm.

This is where I see one of the most important contributions of the Applied Curiosity Model. The Reflect phase is, at its heart, a built-in pause. It is the part of the cycle that says: before you act, think. Before you react, understand.

Most neurodivergent leaders I work with are brilliant at the React phase. Ideas, action, movement. That is often where the energy and the passion live. What gets missed is the Reflect phase. And when it gets missed, decisions become reactive, energy gets depleted, and burnout follows.

Learning to value and protect your Reflect time is one of the most powerful things you can do for your long-term sustainability as a leader and founder. And yes, working with a coach or mentor can support this reflection, and it is something we can work on directly together.  But it is also something I encourage clients to do between sessions, so it becomes a skill they start applying automatically.

Wanting Support From Someone Who Truly Gets It.

This one is personal, I've experienced what it is like to get 'advice' from someone who claims to understand but doesn't really get the full impact of what is happening for me.

So the report finding that 79% of neurodivergent founders said it was important that support comes from someone with lived experience of neurodivergence was no surprise for me.

I am a dyslexic thinker. I am neurodivergent. That is not a footnote to my work, it is central to how I understand leadership, how I developed the Applied Curiosity Model, and how I show up in every coaching and mentoring conversation.

I know what it is like to have a brain that processes information differently. I know what it feels like to be in a room where the way things are done does not suit how you think. I know the particular exhaustion of masking, and the particular relief of being somewhere you do not have to.  I, too, feel that weight of responsibility for having to educate people on what this experience is like.

When I work with neurodivergent leaders, I am not applying a framework designed for someone else and adapting it as we go. I am working from a genuine understanding. That changes the nature of the conversation. You do not need to explain or justify your experience to me. We can start from where you actually are.

The Systematic and Admin Barriers Are Real And Are Stopping Neurodivergent Leaders

The report found that 61% of neurodivergent founders had avoided starting or scaling a business because of systemic or personal barriers related to being neurodivergent. A further 46% struggled with legal or administrative processes when starting out.

The report draws on research in cognitive load theory to make a point that will feel very familiar if you are neurodivergent. Unnecessary complexity reduces performance, increases error rates, and heightens stress for everyone. For neurodivergent founders, complex systems do not just slow things down. They can stop things altogether.

One founder quoted in the report put it simply: "Just the basics of running a business are overwhelming... It can feel like a swamp trying to swallow you."

If you have ever felt that way, I want you to know that it is a rational response to an irrational amount of complexity. And part of what good coaching and mentoring does is help you build the systems, structures, and strategies to navigate that complexity in a way that works for your brain.

The Applied Curiosity Model helps here too, because the Research phase includes learning how to find and filter information, and the React phase includes the planning and process skills that make implementation manageable. You are not just learning concepts. You are building practical tools.

Neurodivergent Leaders Need Support That Is Flexible, Ongoing, and Actually Useful

The report describes what good support looks like for neurodivergent founders. It should be flexible and modular. It should come from someone with lived experience. It should focus on confidence as well as skills. And it should be ongoing, not a one-off event.

I designed the Applied Curiosity Model as a continuous cycle for exactly this reason. There is no endpoint where you have finished being curious. Every revolution of the Research, Reflect, React cycle builds on the previous one. Your capacity grows. Your confidence grows. Your ability to apply curiosity to the challenges in front of you grows. 

My coaching and mentoring is structured around this model. We work in whatever format suits you best. We work at a pace that is sustainable for you, not a pace set by a programme that was designed for someone else.  Underlying this is an aim to make you and your business as self-sufficient as possible, only pulling in support when you need it.

So What Does This All Mean for You?

Let me get curious with you for a moment.

If you are a neurodivergent leader or founder, and you recognise yourself in any of what I have shared today, I want to ask you a question.

What would it be worth to have a structured, evidence-based process for building your confidence, processing information in a way that works for your brain, managing your energy sustainably, and making decisions that you can actually follow through on?

What would change in your business or your leadership if you had that?

The LILAC Centre Report confirms something I have believed for a long time. Neurodivergent leaders and founders are not held back by a lack of ability or ambition. They are held back by systems that were not built for them, systems that do not recognise their amazing strengths and abilities, and by the absence of support that genuinely understands how they work.

The Applied Curiosity Model was built for how you work. And I built it as someone whose brain works the same way.

So Lets Find Out If We Are A Good Fit

I offer a free consultation call for neurodivergent leaders and founders who want to explore whether working together would make a difference for them.

It is a genuine conversation. We will talk about where you are, what is getting in the way, and whether the Applied Curiosity Model and my coaching and mentoring approach feels like the right fit for you.

If it is, brilliant. We will talk about what working together looks like.

If it is not, I will do my best to point you in the direction of something that is going to work for you.

So, are you ready to get curious?

The questions I would like to leave you with

The question I would like to leave you with is this:

If the system were not the barrier, and you had the right support around you, what would you build?