Superpower: How Dyslexia Built the Skills That Define My Leadership

Discover how to reframe a hidden difficulty as the source of your strongest leadership capability, and what it means for the neurodiverse talent on your team.Every year on the third Thursday of May, Global Accessibility Awareness Day asks a direct question: who is being left out by the way we design things? This episode takes that question into the workplace and makes it personal.Lee shares the story of Theo Paphitis, the Dragon's Den entrepreneur who credits his dyslexia as the foundation of his business instinct: the ability to problem-solve verbally, make fast decisions, and trust pattern recognition over text. Then Lee reflects on his own journey, from the panic of the workshop flip chart to consistently volunteering to present, and how a strategy built entirely around avoiding writing ended up shaping a career in communication and leadership coaching.The episode closes with a direct challenge to leaders: when you mandate the method, you design out the people whose thinking doesn't move in straight lines. Ask for the outcome. Define it clearly. Then get out of the way.CHAPTERS00:00:00: What is Global Accessibility Awareness Day and why it matters00:01:30: Theo Paphitis: building a business empire while navigating dyslexia00:03:30: Lee's story: struggling to write and what that quietly built00:06:00: The workshop pattern: always volunteering to present00:08:00: The leadership challenge: method vs outcome00:09:30: How to unlock the superpowers in a neurodiverse teamKEY TAKEAWAYS FOR LEADERSThe workarounds people build to navigate difficulty often become their most transferable skills. When you mandate the method, report, slide deck, written update, you frequently design out the people whose thinking works differently but whose output could meet or exceed your standard. Separating outcome from method is one of the most practical inclusion moves a leader can make, and it costs nothing.KEY TAKEAWAYS FOR COACHESClients who have spent years managing a hidden difficulty may not have connected their strongest capabilities to that difficulty. Exploring the 'workarounds' they built, rather than the difficulty itself, can surface a more accurate and energising account of how their skills actually developed. This episode is a useful prompt for that conversation.Thank you for watching/ listening.#ad Editing my podcast used to be the most time-consuming part of my week. I now use Descript to edit my audio and video by simply deleting words from a transcript. It allows me to create my YouTube Shorts and TikTok clips in a fraction of the time.If you want to try it for your own projects, you can sign up here: https://get.descript.com/LevelUpUsing this link costs you nothing extra, but the small commission I receive helps support the work I do on my podcast and articles. Paid plans start at around £12 / $16 per month (billed annually) for the Hobbyist tier.Music, jingles, and images - attribution.Podcast Background Track: https://pixabay.com/users/poorartistt-45918667/Guitar Jingle: https://pixabay.com/music/introoutro-guitar-intro-ident-151972/Images: https://gemini.google/overview/image-generation/ & https://www.perplexity.ai/Disclaimer.LevelUp and the podcast host do not endorse, verify, or take responsibility for any products, services, views, or claims presented by guests during podcast episodes. Any opinions or statements made by podcast guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views or  positions of LevelUp or its representatives.© 2026 LevelUp.This episode is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/