ADHD at Work: Closing the Gap Between Ability and Perception

At work, ADHD can create a disconnect between your genuine abilities and how you're perceived as an employee.

Often, performance is judged based on aspects directly tied to executive functioning, such as timeliness, organization, and following through on deadlines. This can be especially difficult for women who may already feel like they are swimming upstream to be taken seriously and advance in their careers.

The Corporate Mask: When Symptoms are Mistaken for Attitude

Before transitioning into graduate school to become a therapist, I worked in the corporate world. I was young, undiagnosed, and spent every day masking just to fit into that environment.

Sometimes, the mask would slip, and the impact on my professional perception was immediate:

• I received feedback about crying when I felt frustrated, stuck, or like something was unfair.

• I was called out for my "attitude" when colleagues interrupted with questions I had answered before.

• I'd efficiently complete my work, only to be told I was a distraction to others on the team... gasp, me? Distracting?

  
  

While I can laugh about these moments now, the truth is that this stress led me to rely on negative self-talk and appeasing behaviors to succeed, resulting in total burnout and resentment.

Now, as a therapist, I sit with clients who struggle to set boundaries, can't understand why they do great work (often better than their colleagues), but still feel limited or unable to advance.

What I—and many of my clients—lacked was a fundamental knowledge of why we felt the way we did, along with the necessary tools and resources to accommodate our systems. Without this, we were not perceived as the intelligent and capable employees we truly were.

Why Your Behavior Doesn’t Represent Your Ability

The core challenge is that many common ADHD symptoms are misinterpreted as flaws in character or professionalism.

Here’s how core ADHD traits show up and create a false perception:

• Impulse Control: Leads to interrupting or frequently contributing in group settings, which can be seen as dominating or disruptive.

• Time Blindness/Perception: Results in being late to work or meetings, which is often mistaken for a lack of respect or commitment.

• Emotional Dysregulation: Causes the intensity of your response to seem out of sync (e.g., crying when frustrated or angry), which is labeled as "overly emotional" or unprofessional.

• Knowledge and Understanding: Being unaware of how these behaviors are perceived by others in the moment.

• Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria (RSD): Struggling to take feedback without immediately shutting down or becoming emotionally flooded.

  
  

You Can Show Up Authentically and Effectively

All these workplace struggles could be directly related to unmanaged ADHD symptoms, but that absolutely does not mean it can’t get better!

There are many ways to strategically structure your day and implement systems that can help you navigate your workday in a more regulated and engaged way. While there is no "one size fits all" solution—as everyone struggles differently and responds to different adjustments—solutions exist for you.

Let me help you bridge that gap. Schedule a strategy call today to discuss your current challenges and ways in which small adjustments may make a big difference in your work life!

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by Rhonda Estling, LMFT

Therapist & ADHD Coach