The Hidden Disability at the Table: What Invisible Illness Taught Me About Leadership
How Hidden Disabilities Became My Unexpected Leadership Superpower
I'm the Best-Kept Secret at the Table
I'm the best-kept secret at the table. Not because I'm hiding anything, but because when you look at me, you see a woman who has it together. And most days, I do.
But here's the thing nobody sees: I live with hidden disabilities. There's nothing obvious that announces it when I walk into a room. Just a body and brain that sometimes operate on a completely different schedule than the one I agreed to.
I've gotten very good at looking fine. That's kind of the problem.
THE INVISIBILITY CLOAK NOBODY ASKED FOR
Here's what living with a hidden disability is like: you walk into a meeting looking professional, and you are professional. But you've already done the invisible math: the energy budget, the schedule, the "Can I physically make it through this hour without anyone noticing I'm running on fumes?"
You learn to prepare like a spy. You plan your week around your good days. You build margin into everything because you can't negotiate with your own body.
And then one day, you realize: Every single skill I've learned to navigate life in a body that doesn't always cooperate is also a leadership skill.
THE ACCIDENTAL LEADERSHIP TRAINING
Nobody signs up to learn leadership through chronic illness. But here's what living this way has taught me:
You notice what other people miss. When you've spent years reading your own body's signals, you get good at reading rooms. You catch the person who's struggling but won't say so. You see the systems that quietly exclude people. That's not a soft skill. That's leadership awareness, and it changes how you build teams, make decisions, and notice who is being left behind.
You learn to ask for help, and mean it. Pride is a luxury when your body runs on its own schedule. I've learned to say, "I need help with this," without making it a whole thing. Leaders who can do that build teams that can do that. And teams that can do that? They win.
You design for everyone, not just the average. When you know what it's like to be left out of a system that wasn't built for you, you build differently. You make the invitation wider. You check the entrance, not just the main room. You ask, "Who can't do this?" before you ask, "Who wants to do this?"
You get really, really good at resilience. Not the Instagram kind. The kind where you keep showing up, keep building, keep writing novels and launching nonprofits because the alternative is giving up, and that was never the plan.
Today, I don't measure commitment by who can stay the latest, attend every event, or push through without asking for help. I care about outcomes, communication, and whether people have what they need to contribute. Living with a hidden disability didn't lower my expectations of people. It changed what I believe good leadership should expect—and what good leaders should provide.
THE PLOT TWIST
Which brings me to the plot twist, and I'm a mystery writer, so I know a thing or two about plot twists.
I turned my story into a mission. I founded Access Unleashed, a nonprofit that trains businesses, schools, churches, and organizations on how to genuinely support people with hidden disabilities. We also help our ambassadors raise funds for service dog training because, for people with hidden disabilities, a properly trained service dog can provide independence, safety, and access that most people never have to think about. Mine, Barley, is in training right now. She's working on gluten detection and manners. I'm working on patience. We're both a work in progress.
Here's what I want every leader reading this to know: I'm not special. I'm one of millions of people living with disabilities and health conditions you may never recognize simply by looking at us. We show up to your meetings, classrooms, churches, and communities every single day.
You already have us at your table. The question is whether we feel safe telling you we're there.
THE INVITATION
So here's my ask, leader to leader: build the table where hidden disabilities don't have to be hidden.
That looks like:
- Asking, "What do you need to do your best work?" and meaning it.
- Designing events, offices, and systems that work for people with chronic pain, neurodivergence, invisible illness, and everything in between.
- Knowing that accessibility isn't a checkbox. It's an invitation.
Because here's the beautiful, inconvenient truth I've learned: when you design with the people most likely to encounter barriers in mind, everybody wins. The ramp helps the wheelchair user and the parent with the stroller. Clear communication helps the neurodivergent employee and the one who's just having a rough Tuesday.
Hidden disabilities taught me how to lead. Not in spite of them, but because of them.
I still look fine in meetings. The difference is, I'm no longer trying so hard to prove it. I'm building a bigger table instead, and I'm just getting started.
