What Leaders and Managers Can Learn from The Dyslexic Advantage
Devon ran operations for a mid-size manufacturer and had a reputation for walking onto a chaotic factory floor and, within an hour, redesigning the workflow so three departments stopped blaming each other. What his team did not see was the stack of quarterly reports he printed out and read alone on Sunday nights, working through them slower than he would ever admit in a meeting. He had learned to summarize dense documents by ear, asking a direct report to walk him through the highlights before he committed to a decision. Colleagues called him decisive and intuitive. A few, privately, wondered why someone so sharp seemed to avoid long email threads. Devon had never named what was actually happening in his own head, and that silence was costing him a chance to manage his own energy, and his team, more deliberately.
The whole book, compressed
This edition works through 4 core lessons — take them one at a time, not all at once.
What's different for your conditions
Tap whichever ones sound like you. Nothing here is sent or saved — it's just for your own noticing.
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The core lessons, applied to you
It's a pattern, not a verdict on competence
Many capable leaders carry some degree of reading-related difficulty alongside real strengths in judgment, delegation, and reading a room. Naming the difficulty as a distinct processing pattern, rather than a character flaw to hide, removes the need to perform effortless reading in every meeting. It does not mean every strong leader is dyslexic, or that every leader who struggles with a report has an underlying processing difference; the point is to stop treating either possibility as shameful.
Using "it's just how my brain works" as a blanket excuse can dodge accountability for genuinely under-prepared decisions.
Ask one trusted colleague to flag, honestly, when a decision seems rushed because you skimmed rather than read.
The strengths behind good judgment calls
Leaders who excel at reorganizing a broken process, or resolving conflict between departments by seeing the larger pattern connecting them, are often drawing on a big-picture and systems-level way of reasoning. This same orientation commonly shows up as strong spatial and mechanical thinking on a factory floor, or an ability to reason through a business case the way a story unfolds rather than as an isolated spreadsheet.
Big-picture confidence can override a subordinate's detailed, correct objection if a leader assumes their own synthesis is automatically right.
Build a standing habit of asking the most detail-oriented person in the room to poke holes before you finalize a big decision.
Redesigning how information reaches you
Most organizations default to memos and dense reports as the primary way decisions get made and recorded, regardless of whether that format suits every strong leader's processing style.
Over-relying on verbal briefings can leave a leader vulnerable when a written record is later needed to defend a decision.
Pair every verbal briefing with a short written summary you review yourself, even briefly, before it becomes official.
Leading from strength, not from cover-up
A leader who has spent years quietly compensating for reading speed often carries an unspoken story that competence and reading fluency are the same thing. They are not. Separating the two lets a leader name real strengths in judgment, pattern recognition, and people skills without treating them as consolation prizes for a struggle they would rather hide, and without pretending that struggle needs no ongoing support.
The pull to protect a polished, always-in-control image and the value of naming a real processing pattern openly work against each other, especially for a leader whose authority depends on appearing unshakably competent. Holding both means choosing disclosure selectively and strategically, with people who will actually use the information to help, rather than either hiding everything or announcing everything.
Name one thing, honestly
- Who on your team already knows how you actually process written information? - Which recent decision relied more on someone else's summary than your own reading? - What would change if your team saw your workaround systems as strengths, not secrets?
Good. Now look back at the "Try this" line under whichever lesson feels most connected to what you just wrote, and treat that as this week's actual assignment — not all 4 at once.
The practices from this edition
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Run this for seven days
Pair every verbal briefing with a short written summary you review yourself, even briefly, before it becomes official.