Balancing the Teeter Totter: A Dialectical View of Managing Neurodiverse Employees

ABSTRACT Effective management of autistic employees is a topic germane to the successful integration of individuals on the spectrum into the workplace, but is a question that management researchers are only starting to broach. Unlike past research, we examine successful management for autistic employees without applying a priori leadership constructs traditionally found in the literature. Instead, we use a grounded approach to investigate how managers can effectively structure the day-to-day interactions they have with autistic employees. In doing so, we identify a dialectic between wanting to treat all employees as equal while understanding that different employees have very different needs. Based on this dialectic, we explore managerial behaviors associated with the poles and propose four different management types that lead to different outcomes for employees and organizations. Lastly, we build on aspects of identity negotiation to unpack how managers can balance the dialectic between different needs and wanting equal treatment .