Let me introduce you to the struggle of ‘working memory’, an unseen obstacle holding back dyslexic minds.

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A few years ago, I was in a café with shared toilets as part of a larger complex. To use them, you needed a four-digit code. When I asked where they were, the staff gave me detailed directions and the code at the same time.

My brain had to hold both pieces of information, where to go and what number to remember, while my stress levels were rising. I went back to the counter four times: first to check left or right, then because I couldn’t find the toilets, then because I’d forgotten the code, and finally, repeating “7435” under my breath, I tripped and cut my knee.

This might sound like a small thing, but for me it’s a perfect example of what dyslexia can feel like in everyday life – juggling too much information all at once, often with time pressure, knowing that if you drop something it could be misunderstood as careless.

So, what happens when this starts happening in the workplace?

Early in my career, I’d sent a client quote in pounds instead of dollars. But when it happened again the following week, what my manager saw as carelessness was actually my dyslexia. He responded in a way I will never forget: “Are you lazy, or are you stupid?”

That moment stayed with me, not just because of what was said, but because it revealed something much bigger. For all the progress we think we’ve made in understanding neurodiversity, the reality is this: Britain still treats dyslexia as a school problem, not a workplace one.

This comes at a cost.

Growing up, I was often told my dyslexia was a “superpower”. It’s a phrase you hear everywhere now – in classrooms, LinkedIn posts, motivational talks. The intention is positive, but in practice it often feels disconnected from reality.

If it’s a superpower, why does it feel twice as hard just to keep up?

Calling it a superpower might sound empowering, but it can obscure the reality that many people need practical support to do their jobs effectively. This narrative can also disproportionately glamourise neurodivergence, shifting the focus away from what employers should be doing, and placing the burden back on individuals to ‘lean into their strengths’.

But strengths don’t remove challenges. They exist alongside them.

It’s not a small group of people navigating this either. Dyslexia affects around 1 in 10 people in the UK. In fact, some estimates suggest it could be as high as 1 in 5, depending on how it’s assessed.

In school, there was at least some recognition that things might need to be different. But once you enter the workplace, that understanding often disappears entirely. The expectation is simple: perform like everyone else, at the same speed, in the same way.

For many dyslexic adults, that means operating under constant pressure, trying to manage working memory challenges, organisation difficulties, and communication differences, all while making sure none of it is visible.

That lack of understanding isn’t just anecdotal. Recent data from Acas shows that over a third of workers believe their employer is ineffective at training managers to support neurodiversity in the workplace. In other words, the people responsible for managing performance are often the least equipped to understand it.

I’ve seen this play out not just in my own career, but in the hundreds of adults I now work with.

One senior manager I supported was on the verge of a performance review, not because they weren’t capable, but because they were struggling to manage their workload. When they asked for support, their boss told them: “You’re too senior to need this kind of help.”

That mindset is more common than we’d like to admit.

I’ve also experienced firsthand how these challenges can shape careers in subtler ways. In one interview for a major step up in my career, I was asked to analyse a task and present my ideas on the spot. I hadn’t disclosed my dyslexia. My thoughts were strong, but my delivery was clumsily ordered. So when a senior director pointed out a spelling mistake, I felt humiliated.

They told me they loved my idea. But I later discovered I had been hired at significantly lower pay than others at the same level. Not getting support left me embarrassed and underpaid.

Many people with dyslexia overcompensate, double-checking everything, spending extra hours avoiding small mistakes that could be misread as incompetence, and staying quiet in meetings despite having valuable ideas.

This invisible effort is rarely recognised. But it has real consequences, for confidence, for career progression, and ultimately for the economy.

What needs to change isn’t necessarily the narrative, personally I do love the idea of everyone being able to embrace their superpower in their own way, instead what needs to change is the practical reality.

This means normalising workplace adjustments, rethinking how we assess performance, and moving away from rigid, traditional expectations for deliverables in the workplace. It also means creating environments where people are comfortable and encouraged to ask for support, without judgment or fear of missing out on a pay rise or promotion.

Until we move beyond calling it a “superpower” and start addressing the reality of how it shows up at work, we will continue to hold people back. Not because they lack ability, but because we don’t have workplaces that allow them to use this superpower in the best way.

Natalie Brooks is the founder of Dyslexia in Adults and author of the book Dyslexia Unlocked.

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