Intro to Pillar Talk

The Neurodivergent Leader Podcast

“I feel really strongly that we need to provide a safe space for people to be able to come and investigate who they are and feel comfortable,” emphasizes Donna McLaughlin. In today’s inaugural edition of Pillar Talk, co-hosts Heather Wagner and Donna McLaughlin discuss the five competencies that their curriculum encompasses. They dive deep into how they developed the framework for their leadership program and the personal experiences that led them down this path.

Heather and Donna discuss how their personal relationships with neurodivergence paired with their individual backgrounds in leadership development and trauma-informed teaching has provided them with the expertise to create the framework for their neurodivergent leadership program. They then explain the five core competencies (The Five A’s) that they teach in their program for neurodivergent leaders: awareness, authenticity, action, accountability and advocacy.

Tune into this week’s episode of The Neurodivergent Leader Podcast to learn more about the pillars that Heather and Donna use to guide their work. If you are a neurodivergent individual who feels like you want to change your life, but you’re not quite sure where to start, don’t miss out on this conversation!

Quotes

• “I just feel really strongly that we need to provide a safe space for people to be able to come and investigate who they are and feel comfortable and not feel as if they’re being judged and not feel as if they’re being pathologized and not feel as if they have to mask or perform or do anything in order to be who they are and then get in community with one another and say, ‘How can we empower each other? How can we become more accountable, as well as how can I do all of those things?’ So that was where for me this whole idea kind of sparked.” (14:30-15:09 | Donna)

• “We believe in strength-based leadership development, and we believe in empowering people to own their strengths.” (24:33-24:42 | Heather)

• “What if we renamed it ‘The Great Restoration’ where we put humans and values back in the center?” (29:06-29:13 | Heather)

• “It’s the actual celebration of people’s differences that I think is going to be the catalyst to cracking open some of these issues. Most of us…hiding the parts of yourself that you feel the most ashamed about or that aren’t received well in the world by other people and make you vulnerable, those are the places that we need to actually crack open and let other people see inside of it so that we can heal from it…The actual healing comes in confronting it and getting it out there in the open and letting other people witness to it and support us through it that really the transformation and the change is going to occur.” (35:05-36:01 | Donna)

Learn more about the Neurodivergent Leader Podcast:

www.neurodivergentleader.com

https://www.instagram.com/neurodivergentleader/

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm