Leading with Strengths and ADHD in the Workplace with Rita Ramakrishnan

Hacking Your ADHD

William Curb

Mental Health, Health & Fitness

4.8 • 702 Ratings

🗓️ 8 September 2025

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Hey Team!

This week, I’m talking with Rita Ramakrishnan, a seasoned strategic executive and leadership coach with over 15 years of experience. Diagnosed with both ADHD and Autism Spectrum during her undergrad years, Rita reframed what could have been limitations into strengths and now looks to uplift other neurodivergent women in leadership roles.

Currently, she is pursuing a master's degree in neurodivergent leadership at the University of Pennsylvania, intensifying her expertise in coaching and organizational strategy tailored to neurodivergent individuals.

In our conversation, we cover everything from identifying when you’re dysregulated (and what to do about it) to designing teams that play to everyone’s strengths. Rita walks us through practical tools like outsourcing strategically, tracking your energy to uncover strengths, and building a leadership charter so teams can work more effectively together. It’s a conversation about leading authentically, creating systems that work for your brain, and how to advocate for your needs without falling into people-pleasing traps.

If you'd life to follow along on the show notes page you can find that at HackingYourADHD.com/243

YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/y835cnrk

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/HackingYourADHD

This Episode's Top Tips

1. Try creating a Minimum Viable Routine - your baseline routine that consists of the bare minimum you need in place to function. The point of an MVR is to take those non-negotiables and lock them in, either with automation, outsourcing, or simple systems. That way, when ADHD throws a curveball, you still have the essentials covered.

2. Instead of only measuring productivity by what gets checked off a to-do list, try looking at how you feel after activities. Track when you walk away from a meeting or task feeling energized, and when you walk away feeling drained.

3. Rejection sensitivity hits hard for many folks with ADHD. A short email reply, a period at the end of a text, or even a coworker sounding rushed can feel like a personal rejection. Rita’s advice is to deliberately separate yourself from the situation and try to depersonalize feedback. This reframing can help shift from identity-based thinking (like “I’m the problem”) to more situation-based thinking (“this may be tough, but it’s fixable”).

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Hacking Your ADHD.
0:06.1	I'm your host, William Kerb, and I have ADHD.
0:09.1	On this podcast, I dig into the tools, tactics, and best practices to help you work with your ADHD brain.
0:15.3	Hey, team, this week I'm talking with Rita Ramakrishnan, a seasoned strategic executive and leadership coach with over 15
0:22.2	years of experience. Diagnosed with both ADHD and autism during her undergrad years,
0:27.2	Rita reframed what could have been limitations into strength and now looks to uplift other
0:31.3	neurodivergent women in leadership roles. Currently, she is pursuing a master's degree in
0:36.1	neurodivergent leadership at the University
0:37.7	of Pennsylvania, intensifying her expertise in coaching and organizational strategies tailored
0:42.2	to neurodivergent individuals.
0:44.3	In our conversation today, we cover everything from identifying when you're disregulated
0:48.0	and what to do about it, to designing teams that play to everyone's strengths.
0:52.7	Rita walks us through practical tools like outsourcing strategically,
0:56.1	tracking your energy to uncover strengths,
0:58.2	and building a leadership charter so teams can work more effectively together.
1:02.1	It's a conversation about leading authentically,
1:04.0	creating systems that work for your brain,
1:06.0	and how to advocate for your needs
1:07.7	without falling into the traps of people-pleasing.
1:10.7	If you'd like to follow along on the show notes page, you can find that at Hacking Your ADHD.com slash 243. And before we get started, I just wanted to let everyone know that we're going to start playing around with trying out some mid-roll ads. These are going to be dynamically inserted, so they're not going to be in every episode, but it does mean I'm going to be working on sticking in some mid-roll breaks into the episodes. We'll have an only set place like this. So when you hear that, you know an ad is coming up. So that's just something we're working on, and I wanted to give everyone a heads up. Not every episode will have those mid-world ads, but they will have the mid-roll breaks, even if an ad isn't playing. So, just wanted to make sure everyone was on
1:48.8	the same page here. All right, keep on listening to find out how neurodivergents can thrive in the
1:53.7	workplace. I'm so glad that you're here with me today, and we're going to be talking about neurodivergent leadership in a little bit.
	...

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