Autism as an excuse?
Autism as an excuse? Diagnosis, reasonableness and responsibility in the workplace
Autism as an excuse? Diagnosis, reasonableness and responsibility in the workplace
DESCRIPTION: A diagnosis explains behaviour. It does not, on its own, determine either the reasonableness of that behaviour or the responsibility of all those involved. Why the question ‘autistic or inconsiderate’ confuses two different things.
Autistic or inconsiderate? Why the question is misguided
“And what about someone who hasn’t been diagnosed but displays some of these traits? How do you distinguish between being autistic and simply inconsiderate? And how do you manage someone in a large, high-pressure organisation who has burned their bridges, rejects any diagnosis and at the same time demands that everyone show consideration?”
The recurring comment
This comment, or something similar, appears beneath almost every list of autistic behavioural traits. To dismiss it as stupid or malicious would be the easiest – and the worst – way to deal with it. It articulates a real problem. People experience hurt, insecurity and institutional overload, and they haven’t been given a useful way to express it.
Nevertheless, the question is flawed, and for a specific reason. It treats four things as if they were the same: the form of a behaviour, the intention behind it, its effect on others, and the acceptance of responsibility for it.
These four aspects regularly diverge. Someone can act without any hostile intent and still cause harm. Someone can deviate from the norm without harming anyone. And someone can have a perfectly valid explanation for their behaviour and yet refuse to discuss its consequences.
Both sides are equally mistaken.
The usual debate revolves around two positions: diagnosis as a licence to act versus diagnosis as an excuse. Both share a common assumption, and that assumption is wrong. They imply that explanation and responsibility are mutually exclusive.
The opposite is true. Only a useful explanation makes responsibility concrete, because it identifies what can actually be worked on. Anyone who knows that a meltdown becomes less likely when changes are announced has a task to fulfil. Anyone who merely knows that someone is ‘difficult’ has none.
Three distinct levels
Instead of asking whether this person is autistic or inconsiderate, it is better to ask: ‘What exactly is happening here, who is actually affected by it, what could be changed, and who can help make that happen?’
Level | Key question | What must not be assumed |
Explanation | Why is this behaviour occurring? | That it is therefore without consequences |
Impact and reasonableness | What effect does it have on others? | That any irritation is already harmful |
Adaptation | What can the individual change, and what can the organisation change? | That adaptation is only the responsibility of one side |
The third column is the actual work. Every level is routinely overstretched in everyday life, and every instance of overstretching creates a familiar dead end.
Irritation does not yet constitute harm.
A lack of eye contact, directness without social cushioning, stimming, withdrawing during breaks, a lack of small talk, the sensory-based rejection of a dress code: none of this is, in itself, a social transgression. It is simply unfamiliar.
Unfamiliarity does not harm anyone. It just sometimes feels that way, and the distinction is significant in everyday working life because both are lumped together under the label ‘inappropriate behaviour’.
Harm is not insignificant.
The reverse is equally true. If behaviour repeatedly disrupts work processes, shames people, intimidates them or places an unpredictable burden on them, then this effect cannot be resolved simply by pointing to neurodiversity.
The question of blame is less important here. What matters more is remediation and prevention: what can be identified earlier in future, what can be changed, and what can be mitigated?
The Meltdown and What Followed
The meltdown is a perfect illustration of this, so here’s a case in point.
Friday afternoon, open-plan office. A reorganisation is announced by email, to take effect from Monday, including the seating plan. Twenty minutes later, an employee is standing at his team leader’s desk, shouting. Not loudly like someone getting worked up, but loudly like someone who has lost control of their voice. He says things about her way of working that two colleagues overhear. Then he leaves and is not seen for the rest of the day.
A meltdown is not a power play, nor is it the result of poor upbringing. It is a state in which self-regulation is no longer possible. This explains why someone might shout, break down, freeze or feel compelled to leave the situation.
This does not answer two other questions. The team leader is still feeling ashamed on Monday, and the two colleagues heard it all. What do the three of them need? And what is now possible: a return to normality, making sense of it, repair, prevention?
Repair rather than a tribunal
The aftermath should not be structured as a moral tribunal. It is neither about an apology nor a confession, but about making amends, and that consists of specific questions. In the above case, for example: Why was a change to the seating plan sent by email at two o’clock on Friday? How much notice would have been sufficient? How could he himself have realised that he was on the verge of losing control? And what will he do on Monday to ensure the team leader can regain her standing with her colleagues?
The last question is an essential part of this. Unrestricted tolerance is not sustainable.
Ruthlessness
The relevant distinction is not between autism and thoughtlessness. These are two incomparable concepts: one is a way of processing information, the other an attitude.
Ruthlessness would be a stance: the persistent assertion that one’s impact on others is irrelevant. Autistic behaviour can irritate, overwhelm and even hurt others without being motivated by ruthlessness. Conversely, a diagnosis becomes a shield precisely when it shuts down any discussion about impact, boundaries and possible change.
Any language of self-description can be used defensively. This applies just as much to diagnoses as to character, biography, stress, or hierarchy. What matters is not whether someone has an explanation, but whether it opens up a conversation or shuts it down.
The diagnosis as a starting point
‘I am autistic’ can explain a great deal, and in a productive way: I need information in writing. Spontaneous changes unsettle me. I can’t carry on talking right now; I’ll get back to you in an hour.
Each of these sentences opens the door to collaboration. It sets out a condition under which something can succeed, and invites those around me to create it. The diagnosis only becomes a shield when it implies: ‘Your experience ends here.’
The organisational context
In a highly pressured organisational context, a rule applies that runs counter to instinct. Leadership does not categorise people by diagnosis, truthfulness or insight. It must address behaviour and working conditions, not resolve hidden clinical questions.
An organisation does not need to know whether someone is autistic to identify what is untenable in day-to-day working life. Nor does it need to decide whether someone is genuinely neurodivergent to break down barriers. Clear responsibilities, written agreements, predictable changes, quiet spaces, and low-conflict feedback channels are not rewards for a diagnosis. They are good work organisation. The seating arrangement from the example could just as easily have been in place for everyone else two weeks earlier.
This protects both parties. The person is not pressured into self-disclosure. Colleagues do not have to absorb the burden indefinitely.
What the figures show
The ‘Neurodiversity at Work’ survey by Understood.org, conducted by The Harris Poll, highlights this tension. In the third edition from May 2026 – a total of 2,073 adults in the US were surveyed in March 2026, 614 of whom were neurodivergent – 73 per cent say their workplace is accessible to neurodivergent employees, and 69 per cent believe their manager understands neurodiversity.
At the same time, 70 per cent of neurodivergent employees fear they would face disadvantages if they disclosed their neurodivergence, compared with 59 per cent in 2024. 79 per cent of neurodivergent adults and 67 per cent of neurotypical adults perceive a stigma in even asking for an accommodation. 70 per cent do not know what accommodations they are entitled to, and 60 per cent do not know who to turn to. And 75 per cent of neurodivergent women report feeling pressure to ‘hide’ their condition, compared with 69 per cent of men.
These are not German labour market statistics, and they are based on self-reported data. The figures indicate the situation here. The gap between the well-rehearsed rhetoric of acceptance and the real risk becomes apparent, and this gap helps explain the irritable tone in which the initial question is usually posed.
Where refusal begins
Not every unreasonable demand is violence, not every deviation is thoughtlessness, not every explanation is an excuse. But where a diagnosis is meant to say nothing more than: ‘That’s just the way I am, and that’s where your right to your own experience ends’, that is not where autism begins. That is where the refusal to form a relationship begins.
The most important points in brief
• The question ‘autistic or inconsiderate’ confuses four things: form, intention, effect and taking responsibility. They are regularly at odds with one another.
• A diagnosis used as a free pass and a diagnosis used as an excuse share the same fallacy: that explanation and responsibility are mutually exclusive.
• Lack of familiarity is not a disability. Conversely, repeated harm cannot be ended simply by citing neurodiversity.
• A meltdown explains the behaviour but does not address what those affected need. The aftermath should be approached as a means of making amends, not as a tribunal.
• Ruthlessness is an attitude, not a coping mechanism: the persistent assertion that the impact on others is insignificant.
• Organisations do not decide on clinical matters. Predictable changes and written agreements constitute good work organisation and help everyone.
Sources
• Understood.org / The Harris Poll: Neurodiversity at Work Survey 2026, survey conducted from 19 to 23 March 2026, 2,073 adults in the US, 614 of whom were neurodivergent
• Understood.org / The Harris Poll: Neurodiversity at Work Survey 2025
• Autism and ADHD: When are they an excuse, and when are they an explanation? A Conscious Rethink
• Autistic people often display these 13 behaviours that make them so misunderstood. A Conscious Rethink
Related
Neurodiversity Lite: How Neurodiversity Became the Dominant Discourse
Performative Mental Illness: When Self-Diagnosis Becomes Self-Presentation
AuDHD Masking & Burnout: Causes and Help for Those Affected by Burnout in ADHD and Autism
Toxic Terms in Everyday Life: Therapy Speak, Pop Psychology, Relationships
DESCRIPTION: A diagnosis explains behaviour. It does not, on its own, determine either the reasonableness of that behaviour or the responsibility of all those involved. Why the question ‘autistic or inconsiderate’ confuses two different things.
Autistic or inconsiderate? Why the question is misguided
“And what about someone who hasn’t been diagnosed but displays some of these traits? How do you distinguish between being autistic and simply inconsiderate? And how do you manage someone in a large, high-pressure organisation who has burned their bridges, rejects any diagnosis and at the same time demands that everyone show consideration?”
The recurring comment
This comment, or something similar, appears beneath almost every list of autistic behavioural traits. To dismiss it as stupid or malicious would be the easiest – and the worst – way to deal with it. It articulates a real problem. People experience hurt, insecurity and institutional overload, and they haven’t been given a useful way to express it.
Nevertheless, the question is flawed, and for a specific reason. It treats four things as if they were the same: the form of a behaviour, the intention behind it, its effect on others, and the acceptance of responsibility for it.
These four aspects regularly diverge. Someone can act without any hostile intent and still cause harm. Someone can deviate from the norm without harming anyone. And someone can have a perfectly valid explanation for their behaviour and yet refuse to discuss its consequences.
Both sides are equally mistaken.
The usual debate revolves around two positions: diagnosis as a licence to act versus diagnosis as an excuse. Both share a common assumption, and that assumption is wrong. They imply that explanation and responsibility are mutually exclusive.
The opposite is true. Only a useful explanation makes responsibility concrete, because it identifies what can actually be worked on. Anyone who knows that a meltdown becomes less likely when changes are announced has a task to fulfil. Anyone who merely knows that someone is ‘difficult’ has none.
Three distinct levels
Instead of asking whether this person is autistic or inconsiderate, it is better to ask: ‘What exactly is happening here, who is actually affected by it, what could be changed, and who can help make that happen?’
Level | Key question | What must not be assumed |
Explanation | Why is this behaviour occurring? | That it is therefore without consequences |
Impact and reasonableness | What effect does it have on others? | That any irritation is already harmful |
Adaptation | What can the individual change, and what can the organisation change? | That adaptation is only the responsibility of one side |
The third column is the actual work. Every level is routinely overstretched in everyday life, and every instance of overstretching creates a familiar dead end.
Irritation does not yet constitute harm.
A lack of eye contact, directness without social cushioning, stimming, withdrawing during breaks, a lack of small talk, the sensory-based rejection of a dress code: none of this is, in itself, a social transgression. It is simply unfamiliar.
Unfamiliarity does not harm anyone. It just sometimes feels that way, and the distinction is significant in everyday working life because both are lumped together under the label ‘inappropriate behaviour’.
Harm is not insignificant.
The reverse is equally true. If behaviour repeatedly disrupts work processes, shames people, intimidates them or places an unpredictable burden on them, then this effect cannot be resolved simply by pointing to neurodiversity.
The question of blame is less important here. What matters more is remediation and prevention: what can be identified earlier in future, what can be changed, and what can be mitigated?
The Meltdown and What Followed
The meltdown is a perfect illustration of this, so here’s a case in point.
Friday afternoon, open-plan office. A reorganisation is announced by email, to take effect from Monday, including the seating plan. Twenty minutes later, an employee is standing at his team leader’s desk, shouting. Not loudly like someone getting worked up, but loudly like someone who has lost control of their voice. He says things about her way of working that two colleagues overhear. Then he leaves and is not seen for the rest of the day.
A meltdown is not a power play, nor is it the result of poor upbringing. It is a state in which self-regulation is no longer possible. This explains why someone might shout, break down, freeze or feel compelled to leave the situation.
This does not answer two other questions. The team leader is still feeling ashamed on Monday, and the two colleagues heard it all. What do the three of them need? And what is now possible: a return to normality, making sense of it, repair, prevention?
Repair rather than a tribunal
The aftermath should not be structured as a moral tribunal. It is neither about an apology nor a confession, but about making amends, and that consists of specific questions. In the above case, for example: Why was a change to the seating plan sent by email at two o’clock on Friday? How much notice would have been sufficient? How could he himself have realised that he was on the verge of losing control? And what will he do on Monday to ensure the team leader can regain her standing with her colleagues?
The last question is an essential part of this. Unrestricted tolerance is not sustainable.
Ruthlessness
The relevant distinction is not between autism and thoughtlessness. These are two incomparable concepts: one is a way of processing information, the other an attitude.
Ruthlessness would be a stance: the persistent assertion that one’s impact on others is irrelevant. Autistic behaviour can irritate, overwhelm and even hurt others without being motivated by ruthlessness. Conversely, a diagnosis becomes a shield precisely when it shuts down any discussion about impact, boundaries and possible change.
Any language of self-description can be used defensively. This applies just as much to diagnoses as to character, biography, stress, or hierarchy. What matters is not whether someone has an explanation, but whether it opens up a conversation or shuts it down.
The diagnosis as a starting point
‘I am autistic’ can explain a great deal, and in a productive way: I need information in writing. Spontaneous changes unsettle me. I can’t carry on talking right now; I’ll get back to you in an hour.
Each of these sentences opens the door to collaboration. It sets out a condition under which something can succeed, and invites those around me to create it. The diagnosis only becomes a shield when it implies: ‘Your experience ends here.’
The organisational context
In a highly pressured organisational context, a rule applies that runs counter to instinct. Leadership does not categorise people by diagnosis, truthfulness or insight. It must address behaviour and working conditions, not resolve hidden clinical questions.
An organisation does not need to know whether someone is autistic to identify what is untenable in day-to-day working life. Nor does it need to decide whether someone is genuinely neurodivergent to break down barriers. Clear responsibilities, written agreements, predictable changes, quiet spaces, and low-conflict feedback channels are not rewards for a diagnosis. They are good work organisation. The seating arrangement from the example could just as easily have been in place for everyone else two weeks earlier.
This protects both parties. The person is not pressured into self-disclosure. Colleagues do not have to absorb the burden indefinitely.
What the figures show
The ‘Neurodiversity at Work’ survey by Understood.org, conducted by The Harris Poll, highlights this tension. In the third edition from May 2026 – a total of 2,073 adults in the US were surveyed in March 2026, 614 of whom were neurodivergent – 73 per cent say their workplace is accessible to neurodivergent employees, and 69 per cent believe their manager understands neurodiversity.
At the same time, 70 per cent of neurodivergent employees fear they would face disadvantages if they disclosed their neurodivergence, compared with 59 per cent in 2024. 79 per cent of neurodivergent adults and 67 per cent of neurotypical adults perceive a stigma in even asking for an accommodation. 70 per cent do not know what accommodations they are entitled to, and 60 per cent do not know who to turn to. And 75 per cent of neurodivergent women report feeling pressure to ‘hide’ their condition, compared with 69 per cent of men.
These are not German labour market statistics, and they are based on self-reported data. The figures indicate the situation here. The gap between the well-rehearsed rhetoric of acceptance and the real risk becomes apparent, and this gap helps explain the irritable tone in which the initial question is usually posed.
Where refusal begins
Not every unreasonable demand is violence, not every deviation is thoughtlessness, not every explanation is an excuse. But where a diagnosis is meant to say nothing more than: ‘That’s just the way I am, and that’s where your right to your own experience ends’, that is not where autism begins. That is where the refusal to form a relationship begins.
The most important points in brief
• The question ‘autistic or inconsiderate’ confuses four things: form, intention, effect and taking responsibility. They are regularly at odds with one another.
• A diagnosis used as a free pass and a diagnosis used as an excuse share the same fallacy: that explanation and responsibility are mutually exclusive.
• Lack of familiarity is not a disability. Conversely, repeated harm cannot be ended simply by citing neurodiversity.
• A meltdown explains the behaviour but does not address what those affected need. The aftermath should be approached as a means of making amends, not as a tribunal.
• Ruthlessness is an attitude, not a coping mechanism: the persistent assertion that the impact on others is insignificant.
• Organisations do not decide on clinical matters. Predictable changes and written agreements constitute good work organisation and help everyone.
Sources
• Understood.org / The Harris Poll: Neurodiversity at Work Survey 2026, survey conducted from 19 to 23 March 2026, 2,073 adults in the US, 614 of whom were neurodivergent
• Understood.org / The Harris Poll: Neurodiversity at Work Survey 2025
• Autism and ADHD: When are they an excuse, and when are they an explanation? A Conscious Rethink
• Autistic people often display these 13 behaviours that make them so misunderstood. A Conscious Rethink
Related
Neurodiversity Lite: How Neurodiversity Became the Dominant Discourse
Performative Mental Illness: When Self-Diagnosis Becomes Self-Presentation
AuDHD Masking & Burnout: Causes and Help for Those Affected by Burnout in ADHD and Autism
Toxic Terms in Everyday Life: Therapy Speak, Pop Psychology, Relationships