When the Chameleon Comes Back

TL;DR

• Many of us have spent years learning to show up as ourselves at work, after a lifetime of blending in.
• Under pressure, the old chameleon can come right back without asking permission. It happened to me.
• When it does, give yourself grace. Noticing is the win.
• If you lead a team, the culture you build influences how often your people feel they have to blend in.

I've been reflecting lately on masking and on my own leadership journey, and one memory keeps coming back to me.

If you're neurodivergent, whether you have a diagnosis or not, there's a good chance you learned early how to be a chameleon. Watch the room. Match the tone. Blend in. It kept you safe. And if you're lucky, at some point you started setting that skill down and showing up as yourself.

That's where I am these days. I do work that feels authentically connected to who I am, so I'm pretty unmasked at work. Which is exactly why one chapter of my career still surprises me.

The chameleon came back

I had spent years in sales coaching. I taught a Zen Sales workshop on Bainbridge Island, and I was all about empowering people. But I wanted to see corporate life firsthand, so I took a job as VP of Sales at a publicly traded tech company, and I was later promoted to Marketing Director. In so many ways it was a wonderful job, with growth experiences and high-caliber mentorship that shaped the leader I am today.

The culture, though, ran on an unspoken struggle for status. People one-upped each other, hunted for gotcha moments, and flexed for social supremacy. I felt like I had to protect myself and stay in the game. And without ever deciding to, I slipped right back into blending in. The chameleon came back.

I blended in, alright. And I hated myself for it. It wasn't just that I was hiding parts of myself. I was participating in behaviors that didn't align with my values. It cost me my own sense of integrity, and it took time to find my way back to the real me.

Give yourself grace

Years later, my MBA program at Seattle University gave us an assignment: write about a leadership failure. I wrote about that job. At the time, I saw it as my failure.

Now, after years of studying neurodivergence, I see it differently. Blending in was a survival skill I had practiced my whole life. Under enough pressure, of course it showed up again. That says more about how deep those old skills run than about my character. And when you're ADHD and autistic, it can be hard to even know who the real you is, which makes it even easier to slip back into old habits.

That doesn't mean I wasn't responsible for my behavior. It means I can understand it without condemning myself for it.

So if you find yourself blending in again, at a new job, in a tense meeting, or around a certain boss, be gentle with yourself. You haven't lost your progress. Noticing is the win. Once you notice, you get to choose again.

If you lead a team

The culture you build influences how often your people feel they have to blend in. If the chameleon can come back for me, someone who does this work every day, it can come back for anyone on your team, neurodivergent or not. And blending in is tiring. In a 2023 study of workplace masking, participants described extreme exhaustion as one of its most pervasive costs.

From the outside, someone who's blending in can look like they're doing great. So here's where I'd start:

• Build safety before you need it. Psychological safety fades when nobody tends it. (I wrote more about that in I Almost Put This Stat on My Slide Deck.)
• Make room for trust. Informal conversations, genuine curiosity, and consistent follow-through can open doors that formal meetings and surveys sometimes can't. Let people decide what they're comfortable sharing.
• Don't make them name the fix. Asking a worn-out person "What do you need?" can add stress, because they may not know. A culture where it's normal to be yourself does much of the groundwork, making it easier to ask for support when you need it.
• Listen without fixing. It's like catching a butterfly. The harder you reach, the faster it flies away. Be present, be patient, and be safe.

One honest caveat: unmasking isn't a switch someone flips once the environment is right. For many neurodivergent people, masking is years and years of habit, built to survive a world that often doesn't make sense. It's a complex topic, and there's far more to say about it than fits here. But every bit of safety you build helps.

A neuroinformed workplace is one where, over time, people feel safer and safer taking their masks off.

And if your own chameleon has been showing up lately, you already know where to start. Give yourself the same grace you'd give your team.

I'd love to hear your story. Reach out here.

A note on imperfection: I checked these sources as carefully as my detail-loving, yet habitually skimming, brain allows, and I'm always open to the possibility that I got something wrong, worded something clumsily, or used a term someone has outgrown. If you catch it, tell me. Kindly correcting me in public is psychological safety in action, and I'd rather learn than be right. (Okay, I'd like both. But learning wins.)

Reference

Pryke-Hobbes, A., Davies, J., Heasman, B., Livesey, A., Walker, A., Pellicano, E., & Remington, A. (2023). The workplace masking experiences of autistic, non-autistic neurodivergent and neurotypical adults in the UK. PLOS ONE, 18(9), e0290001.

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Heather Flanagan, MBA, is the founder of Flanagan Leadership Group, LLC in Bellingham, WA, helping organizations build neuroinformed workplaces where every voice is heard. Learn more at flanaganleadership.com.