Article 7: The Power of Persistence – Rhythmically Returning to Purpose From Neurodivergent Leadership

Cover of "Look Me in the Eye" by John Elder Robison, a powerful memoir chronicling the life of a man with undiagnosed autism, revealing how resilience, ingenuity, and self-understanding helped him succeed in business, relationships, and identity despite being misunderstood by society.

Part 6: Forged by Difference – Blog Series on Neurodivergent Leadership

Inspired by John Elder Robison’s Look Me in the Eye

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What if persistence isn’t about pushing through, but coming back with purpose?

Most leadership models paint persistence as sheer grit. Keep going. Power through. Never give up.

But neurodivergent insight, and lived experience, offers a better model: rhythm. Not nonstop motion but resilient return.

In Look Me in the Eye, John Elder Robison recounts his extraordinary journey as an undiagnosed autistic man navigating misunderstanding and exclusion. Despite constant barriers, he built a successful life designing sound effects for KISS, founding a tech company, and authoring bestselling books. His persistence didn’t look like force. It looked like rhythm: step away, reframe, return.

I learned this truth firsthand from my son, Kirby. When learning something new, Kirby wouldn’t brute-force his way through frustration. He’d pause, observe, then come back with a new approach. His persistence wasn’t linear. It had beats. Cadence. Recovery. Progress through pattern.

Teams crave this kind of leadership.

In one organization I advised, am executive turned around a struggling division by introducing “recovery rhythms.” Instead of pushing her team harder, she intentionally built in program cycles to reflect on mistakes, harvest lessons, and realign with purpose. Quality metrics improved. So did morale. Why? Because the team learned how to recover together.

Here’s what resilient persistence looks like in practice:

1. Redefine failure as feedback

   Neurodivergent leaders often excel at this as they don’t view setbacks through an emotional lens. For them, setbacks aren’t shameful, they’re data. When leaders reframe failure as iteration, teams lean into risk and growth.

   
   

2. Build recovery into the rhythm

   Grit isn’t always good. Constant effort without reflection leads to burnout. The best leaders don’t just power through, they pause, reflect, reset, and return with purpose.

   
   

3. Model flexible persistence

   Don’t hide your setbacks. Own them. Adapt in real-time. When your team sees you recover, they feel safer to do the same. This builds a culture of trust and innovation.

   
   

Robison writes: “Being different wasn’t the problem. Being misunderstood was.” The same is true for many leaders. What gets labeled as failure or resistance is often just a need for better rhythm with more space for reflection followed by a path to return.

Persistent leadership doesn’t mean always charging forward blindly. It means coming back, over and over again, with added clarity and intention.

Here are a few ways to apply rhythmic persistence with your team right away:

Create a Recovery Ritual

Add 15 minutes to your next team meeting to debrief what didn’t go as planned. Ask: What did we learn? What will we try differently next time?

Schedule Reflection Beats

Have your team members block time every other Friday for personal review on their own or with you. What’s working? What’s stalled? What needs reframing before returning?

Narrate Your Returns

The next time you adjust course after a misstep, say it out loud. “We’re regrouping on this because we learned X. Here’s how we’ll try moving forward.”

Celebrate Comebacks, Not Just Wins

When a teammate bounces back after a setback, acknowledge it. Reward resilience, not just results.

The power of persistence isn’t about never stopping. It’s about always returning.

Returning to purpose. To pattern. To progress. And when your team sees that rhythm in you, they’ll find it in themselves.

What recovery rhythm could you establish to help your team build resilience in the face of setbacks?