Masking: the Hidden Detriment of Neurodiversity

Photo credit: Hamed Farahpour via Unsplash

At first glance, you might not notice anything. The employee in question does their work, attends meetings, makes jokes at the lunch table. But behind that daily functioning sometimes lies a silent effort: constantly adjusting, adapting, or hiding what actually feels natural. We call this effort neurodivergent masking, or masking.

What is Neurodivergent Masking – and why should your Organization Address it?

In the average workplace, neurodiversity is a fact. Approximately one in five colleagues is neurodivergent: they think and feel noticeably differently than the average employee. Perhaps they have ADHD, autism, dyslexia, or giftedness, but in any case, they bring valuable perspectives. Unfortunately, they also more often than average encounter unwritten rules, implicit expectations, and social codes. To avoid this, many neurodivergent professionals have been forced to become experts in masking: the conscious or unconscious hiding of their natural thinking, working, or communication style.

Neurodivergent masking does not happen voluntarily, but out of necessity. To meet the expectations of colleagues, managers, or clients. To appear professional. Or simply to seem ‘normal’.

At first glance, masking might seem efficient: the environment notices nothing, the work gets done. But in the long term, tension builds up, people become exhausted, and eventually they no longer even know who they truly are. This is not pleasant for the individual, nor for the team and the organization they work for.

In this blog, you will read what neurodivergent masking precisely is, how it arises, what impact it has — and most importantly: what you as a manager or employer can do to make it no longer necessary. Spoiler alert: saying “take off your mask, it’s okay here” doesn’t work.

When and how Does Neurodivergent Masking Occur?

Neurodivergent masking is rarely a behavior that only arises in the workplace. Most neurodivergent professionals have become proficient in it long before their careers. As children or young adults, they often learn that certain behaviors, reactions, or preferences are not ‘normal’ — and therefore should be hidden. Masking then becomes a true survival strategy to belong, avoid conflicts, or meet expectations.

Many neurodivergent employees therefore enter the workplace with a mask that has been refined and strengthened over years. What that mask looks like, and when it is used, differs from person to person and from situation to situation. Masking is not a universal pattern, but a personal strategy that adapts to one’s history, environment, and resilience.

What Causes Someone to Mask?

How strongly someone masks at work is partly determined by who that person is. Not only is one behavior easier to adjust than another, but one person will also attach more importance to belonging — and perhaps possess stronger coping mechanisms and more cognitive and emotional reserves. It is logical that people mask differently. But that same person will also mask differently depending on the situation. In an environment with strong and narrow norms, people will mask more and more intensively than in a context where differences are accepted and valued. This also means that as a manager and employer, you have levers to remove a lot of stress from the organization. More on that later.

How Do Neurodivergent Professionals Mask?

Masking occurs in various ways. You can actively copy social behavior that is considered ‘normal’, such as making eye contact or smiling at the right moment. On the other hand, you can also try to hide your stress or overstimulation, even if it is physically noticeable. If you know your pitfalls, you can also develop compensation strategies, for example, by preparing extremely well for a situation or by engaging resources. Or you can learn which situations are difficult for you, and discover how you can avoid them without drawing attention. These are four strategies that often overlap and are used simultaneously – even unconsciously.

Often these strategies are valued or rewarded because they lead to what is seen as “professional” behavior. Viewed this way, masking seems like a strength, and in the short term, it is. So why are we discussing it? Because most neurodivergent professionals do not realize the extent to which they mask (especially if they don’t know they are neurodivergent), and because masking costs so much energy that it cannot be sustained long-term.

It is certainly unfortunate for the professional who all too often ends up in burnout. But that is not the only impact of neurodivergent masking.

What is the Impact of Neurodivergent Masking in the Workplace?

The Impact of Masking on the Neurodivergent Professional and Their Team

The first consequences of masking are usually felt by the person themselves: exhaustion, increased stress, loss of authenticity, and mental distance from work. But the impact does not stop there. Because when neurodivergent employees have to mask long-term, it also leaves its mark at team level and in the broader organization.
In teams, masking leads to disruption. People don’t say what they think, avoid vulnerability, and choose safe interaction over honest exchange. As a result, valuable input remains under the radar. Creative ideas are not brought forward, bottlenecks are not identified, and collaboration remains superficial. Colleagues notice that ‘something’ is wrong, but find it difficult to name — which leads to misunderstandings, frustrations, or a distorted perception of engagement or competence.

The Impact of Masking on Organizations

For organizations, this means loss. Not only of human capital — through burnout, turnover, or internal mobility — but also of innovation capacity and sustainable performance. Masking requires energy. Energy that does not go towards focus, learning ability, or initiative, but towards maintaining a facade. Teams where a lot of masking occurs lose flexibility, resilience, and mutual trust. Furthermore, managers often remain unaware of what employees truly need, causing well-intentioned interventions to miss their mark.

Moreover, an unsafe context affects not only neurodivergent employees. In a culture where being different is corrected or ignored, other team members also start masking — perhaps more subtly, but with similar consequences. Neurodivergent professionals are usually those who suffer the most in such a context, and precisely because of this, they are the first to be able to signal that something is structurally amiss. However, as long as they have to mask, they cannot fulfill that role. It’s like putting a gas mask on the canary in the coal mine — you lose the signal before you recognize it.

And perhaps most importantly: when masking becomes the norm, unique perspectives are structurally underutilized. While precisely these perspectives are crucial for problem-solving, risk detection, innovation, and ethical leadership — all areas in which neurodivergent employees often perform strongly, provided they are allowed to be themselves.

Masking is not an individual problem: it is a way people protect themselves in an environment where their difference is perceived as problematic. Such an environment is one of missed opportunities, both in terms of well-being and results. Organizations that recognize this and commit to neuroinclusion not only create a healthier work environment but also strengthen their impact and agility.

What Can Organizations Do to Make Masking Unnecessary?

If masking is a defense mechanism, then the solution is not for people to “just be themselves”. The solution lies in removing the reasons why they currently feel they cannot. That requires action at multiple levels: individual, team-oriented, and organization-wide. Only in this way can a work environment be created where all employees can focus their energy on their work, and not on maintaining a facade.

Actions at the Individual Level

You might wonder what you can do at an individual level if you don’t know who is masking and if the person in question might not even be aware of it. And yet there are possibilities for which a diagnosis is not necessary. To start, you can ensure there are role models within the organization: people who themselves differ from the norm and dare to show that difference. You can also offer mentoring or coaching to employees who achieve an uneven performance level: in some areas they deliver top performance, in others they fall short. And finally, it is important that you dare to implement accommodations for employees who need them: why would an adapted chair be acceptable, but not noise-cancelling headphones?

Actions at the Team Level

Within your team, you primarily work on psychological safety and celebrating differences. Additionally, you can clarify mutual expectations with a social contract. Also ensure multimodal communication and collaboration. This sounds complicated, but it doesn’t have to be: ensure that important messages are given both orally and in writing, and that written communication supports both verbal and visual thinkers. For your meetings, you can consider different working methods, but also different moments to provide input and feedback, so that not only assertive and verbally strong employees get the opportunity to follow their preferences.

Actions at the Organizational Level

And then there is the organizational level – crucial, because many interventions at the team or individual level are framed by the organization. To embed neuroinclusion, you can work on 6 aspects of your culture, structure, and policy:

What Does this Mean for You, for your Team, or for your Organization?

Would you like more insight into masking, and better understand what you as a manager or an organization can do about it?

Then I warmly invite you to the webinar I will be giving on this soon.

Prefer a personal conversation? That’s also possible, of course!