Blind Leadership: ADHD and Hyper-Focused Vision

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Leadership is a crucial element in any organization, shaping its culture, strategy, and overall success. However, when leadership becomes blind—unaware, uninformed, or lacking insight—the consequences can be severe. The leader, ignorant of the impact of their ADHD, can inadvertently fall into the trappings of blind leadership in a number of ways. Today we’ll look at vision. Vision is often touted as an ADHD super-strength but certain situations can turn it into a real challenge for an organization leading to employee disengagement and burnout.

Blind leadership often results in a lack of vision. Without a clear understanding of where the organization is headed, leaders may struggle to set goals, make informed decisions, and inspire their teams. This absence of direction can lead to confusion, demotivation, and a loss of focus among employees. Ignorant ADHD leaders will often flip this challenge on its head and hyper-focus on one singular vision and one singular version of success. This ‘hyper-vision’ state is due in part to cognitive inflexibility, the need for a dopaminergic ‘kick’ and the inability to see time beyond the ‘Now/Not Now’ paradigm.

The informed ADHD leader becomes aware of this particular blind spot by learning about their unique expression of ADHD, owning and accepting it is a challenge and resourcing others to proactively address the challenge head-on.

Start with very rudimentary questions at your next leadership meeting:

What outcomes are we not anticipating?

Are we ignoring other valid measurements of success?

Remember that ADHD is not a matter of not knowing. It is in part a matter of not seeing all of the options. Asking these questions can activate our interest based nervous system and see a viable option for the first time. Having a space where your people can share without criticism or harsh retribution is key but that is for another post.