08/04/2025

How Leaders Can Advocate around Disability

Building around an inclusion mindset can help

Employees and members tend to have common needs, and most leaders are savvy enough to maintain the key supports, products and services that assist them. But employees, members and meeting attendees with disabilities—both visible and not—may have challenges that can require closer attention.

A recent article in the Harvard Business Review highlights how stressful this can be for people who feel they’re not being seen. In "How to Weigh the Risks of Disclosing a Disability," leadership expert Ludmila Praslova, who is autistic, is blunt about the ways that organizations can be neglectful, and sometimes even actively cruel, in response to her needs.

"In most work settings I haven't disclosed or asked for accommodations, relying instead on job matching and job crafting to use my strengths to excel," she writes. "I did, however, lose career opportunities — my sensory sensitivities make noise and artificial lighting debilitating, so I've had to turn down otherwise excellent job offers that didn't come with access to quiet space, natural light or hybrid work. When I do disclose my health needs, most people are considerate, but some have laughed in my face, dismissed the information or even used it against me."

Please select this link to read the complete article from Associations Now.