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Comment by hos234 | Hacker News Reader

I have had experience with someone who wanted to do this and it didn't go well. A subject matter expert wanted to be team leader because that's what he thought career progress was. Within a few weeks the team collapsed.

Creativity, unconventional thinking, hyperfocus etc is required as support to conventional leaders more than in being leaders. It's not just about improving communication. You have to be much more social, political, be good at handling stress, people have to want to work for you etc and you have to do it competing against experienced people for who that stuff is natural.

The way ahead maybe to think up a role that fits your strengths and then pitch it to higher ups, more than trying to fit into roles that are conventional. Just remember that conventional roles haven't been designed with your strengths in mind.

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About 8 years ago, I was put in charge of a small internal project (a custom test harness). The project itself went very well - it’s still adding value and being used. However, I made some significant leadership mistakes (which I don’t want to go into detail on here).

So I appreciate that there’s a lot at stake, that my natural abilities can’t and won’t suffice, and that I’m starting with a sizeable deficit. Autism is a developmental disorder—perhaps even a disability—but I believe that with the right help, enough hard work and determination, an attitude of wanting to serve others, and enough natural ability in another area of strength that could stand-in where I’m naturally weak, I could learn enough to lead — perhaps even enough to do so successfully as a project leader.

Ideally (and impossibly, I know), I’d love to have a very patient coach to spend months or years with me explaining things. But next-best would be information dense resources on leadership written for high-functioning people with autism/asperger’s. I’m hoping something like that exists.

Temple Grandin does talks about this stuff but it's more along the lines of awareness raising. Join that mailing list...might be a good place to find people that are trying the same thing.

Ironically where I worked, the person had it easy getting the Leadership position. They too had serious experience, expertise in a subject, had produced products that had benefited the company. So upper mgmt approved it despite internal objections being raised about interpersonal comms, a track record of dealing badly with others in stressful situations etc. They actually made the person report to me, because I had some experience managing the person in the past and I said no. Told the person what issues would arise, which resulted in a HR complaint against me. My case to mgmt was simple - if you guys think this is going to work, you need someone who is psychologically knowledgable about the condition for the person to report to. That's the healthiest option and we all knew there was no one around like that. So they made an even bigger mistake of giving the person a team and not having to report to anyone. It blew up in dramatic fashion and I did get an apology from the person later for mistaking what my point had been.

You have to be clear about what leadership is and why you fit. The answer shouldn't be well thats the next rung I see on the org chart.

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