Colleague Dynamics: The Good, The Bad and the Hidden Impact

In one college, a skilled learning coordinator, let’s call her Jasmin, abruptly stopped attending team meetings. It wasn’t a lack of interest. The fast-paced, noisy environment, marked by interruptions, sidebar chats, and rapid task-switching, left her overwhelmed. Jasmin, who experiences sensory sensitivities and possible autistic traits, gradually withdrew. Email became her buffer. She kept performing, but was disconnected from her team and situation. Handovers became clumsy, peer projects stalled, and her manager misread the change as disengagement. In truth, the team’s informal social rules were excluding her.

Elsewhere, in an apprenticeship setting, a technician named Awais was viewed by one of his managers as “inattentive.” But this label masked the mismatch between the workplace setup and how his dyslexic mind processed verbal instructions. Project updates were rushed, ad-hoc, and unstructured. When minor adjustments were trialled, such as visual task boards and written pre-briefs, his ability to mentor and lead suddenly came into view.

At a private Training Provider, a senior curriculum planner, Martin, masked dyslexia and auditory processing fatigue by working overtime to follow rapid meetings. This cost him strategic focus. What helped wasn’t a single assessment, it was a shift in team practice: sharing agendas in advance, setting clearer goals, and adding pauses for reflection. His energy returned. So did his presence as a leader.

Inclusion as Culture, Not Concession

Stories like these aren’t about individual fixes. They reveal something larger: how unwritten team norms and fast-moving cultures can unintentionally exclude people, especially neurodivergent colleagues, but also others navigating anxiety, caregiving roles, or health needs.

In a 2023 EY Belonging Barometer, 75% of workers said they’ve felt excluded at work. Yet 41% named work as their strongest sense of belonging. And over half said they hide parts of themselves for fear of judgement.

These tensions can be magnified in Further Education (FE), where time is tight, resilience is stretched, and systems rarely leave space to reflect on relational dynamics. Cultural norms often go unchecked, until someone opts out.

Moving Beyond the One-Size Team Model

A recurring challenge across FE is the assumption that team dynamics are neutral or naturally inclusive. But patterns like real-time brainstorming, constant messaging, or unscheduled decision-making disproportionately benefit those who think, speak, or process in socially expected ways.

That’s where leadership must look deeper, not to offer isolated adjustments, but to shape shared environments that flex.

To do this effectively, I use the CARE model as a guide:

• Clarity: Make expectations and participation roles explicit, not assumed.
• Access: Provide multiple routes to contribute (writing, speaking, reflecting).
• Recognition: Value contributions by outcome and effort, not just airtime.
• Empathy: Tune into energy shifts, sensory needs, and silent signals.

This aligns closely with Google’s Project Oxygen research, which found the highest-performing teams foster psychological safety and explicit norms, reinforced by managers who champion people, not just productivity.

Sector Comparisons: Inclusive Shifts in Practice

What happens when FE institutions adopt CARE-style principles across different settings?

Setting	Challenge	Practice Shift	Organisational Outcome
FE College (Jasmin)	Sensory overload, social fatigue	Slow-paced meetings, role rotation, email-first input	Team rhythm restored; peer collaboration improved
Apprenticeship Provider (Awais)	Missed updates, misread cues	Visual workboards, task previews, decision pauses	Strengths recognised; staff mentoring launched
Private Training (Martin)	Fatigue in unscripted meetings	Agenda structure, reflection time, and written follow-ups	Leader engagement improved; more precise strategic planning

These aren’t just success stories. They’re examples of what happens when teams adapt, not for one person, but for broader sustainability. Inclusive culture design can’t rely solely on assessments or diagnoses. It must involve rethinking how we work together at every level.

Mind the (Interactional) Gap

Leadership teams often focus on the needs of individuals. But what happens when needs clash?

• One person may require extra time to think before responding.
• Another may need fast-paced dialogue to stay engaged.
• A manager might thrive on open-ended exploration.
• A colleague may seek a firm structure to feel secure.

These differences aren’t deficits. But without open conversation, they turn into frustration or withdrawal. Rather than relying on formal adjustments alone, teams benefit from surfacing preferences, norms, and interaction patterns collectively.

Inclusive leadership requires negotiating shared space, not just accommodating individual ones.

Practical Levers for Inclusive Leadership

So, how can FE leaders start reshaping culture without needing to wait for funding or formal programmes?

Start small, but be systematic:

1. Map team norms: What is assumed, expected, or rewarded in your meetings and collaboration styles? Who benefits?
2. Offer flexible formats: for every verbal meeting, try a written asynchronous equivalent; for every real-time brainstorm, schedule time for pre-reflection.
3. Introduce ‘team charters’: Co-create how people want to work together, pause time, turn-taking, and decision timing.
4. Train for inclusive facilitation: Managers need support to run equitable meetings, offer multiple forms of feedback, and check in with less visible colleagues.
5. Use simple tools: Pre-meeting notes, clear role briefs, and anonymous input channels are low-friction ways to increase belonging.

Workplace needs assessments can support this process, especially where there’s a mismatch between role expectations and how someone works best. But they’re not a fix-all. Real inclusion stems from cultural design, everyday leadership, and systemic attention.

The Deeper Opportunity

Too often, we fixate on “reasonable adjustments” for individuals without examining the broader landscape. Yet exclusion in FE is usually ambient: in the breakneck pace, the unspoken expectations, the default modes of collaboration.

Inclusion isn’t about being nice. It’s about sustaining healthy, high-functioning teams where all kinds of minds can thrive.

So, pause. Ask yourself:

• Who in your team might be opting out, not due to lack of ideas, but lack of space?
• What “normal” behaviours could be unintentionally excluding others?
• What one norm could you redesign today to improve belonging tomorrow?

In Conclusion

FE institutions are communities of staff as well as students. Inclusive leadership isn’t about making room for the outlier; it’s about reshaping the centre. Adjustments help, but culture is what makes those changes stick.

Let’s stop treating inclusion as an afterthought. Let’s build it into the blueprint of how we lead, how we collaborate, and how we thrive together.

By Nathan Whitbread, The Neurodivergent Coach