A little under a year ago I successfully applied for a promotion, the most significant change in my responsibilities being that I would become somebody’s boss. Having now been on the job for approximately nine months, I feel that I have just enough experience to write about the unique challenges that come with being both disabled and a manager.

In preparation for the role, I swallowed up every piece of management training I could get my hands on. The majority of the advice was vague and flowery, the sort of stuff that appears on bad motivational posters in parodies a little too close to reality. As a neurodiverse person the instructions to be authentic but not too authentic, authoritative but not too authoritative, and honest but not too honest were very confusing, particularly as said authenticity seemed to assume you were a cis-gendered, heterosexual, able-bodied, white person. I guess I met one of those criteria.

I took what useful information could be gleaned from the training sessions and decided to learn the rest on the job, the biggest gaps in my knowledge at this point being administrative processes such as approving annual leave, reporting sicknesses, and conducting the dreaded performance reviews.

The first few weeks on the job were some of the most intense I’ve experienced so far, learning protocols for two of the most complex clinical trials I’ve ever encountered in an entirely new disease area. I also had several new technical skills to get the hang of, and so initially my management didn’t get much beyond becoming acquainted with my team.

The first big managerial challenge came in mid-December, when my wheelchair broke down and a taxi abandoned me at the office. I had to communicate to my team that I would be delayed getting back home to my desk, and not being able to make up a good reason under the circumstances, I had to admit that the delay was a direct result of my disability. Everyone was exceptionally understanding and quite possibly ready to “throw hands” (as the kids say) with the taxi driver, but at the same time I was painfully conscious that no other boss in the department had ever had to take an extended lunch break because they experienced ableism.

A couple of weeks into the new year I had a second bout of COVID19, and when I eventually returned the office, I now had to use my glittery fold-up walking stick for things like visiting a colleague at a nearby desk, or grabbing coffee in the kitchen. People were naturally concerned, although plenty of people just wanted to know how I managed to fit a walking stick in the drawers beneath my desk, with comparisons to Mary Poppins pulling a hat-stand from her bag being made. However, I was delighted to see a week later that someone else from another team was now using their fold-up cane around the office, who hadn’t been before. I don’t know if they’d seen me using my cane or it was just a coincidence, but it was nice to see other people openly using mobility aids in the office having worked so hard to create a disability-friendly environment.

Perhaps my biggest challenge, however, came much more recently. No amount of training will ever prepare you for having to have difficult conversations about anything from rejected applications to chronic under-staffing to supporting someone through long-term illness. Dealing with long-term illness was by far the hardest, because I knew all too well the frustrations that arise from the bureaucracy around absences from work, and the additional pressure it can put on someone who is already unwell. I completely empathised having been there before, but had to remain professional; I’m fairly certain that acting with authenticity in that moment would have landed me in a whole heap of trouble.

Throughout all of it, I have been particularly conscious of the privilege my new role has given me. While there are many rungs of the corporate ladder above me, I am looked to for leadership, and my decisions impact everyone on the team. I had to get over my fear of asking for help with physical things like doors or carrying items all over again, fearing that it would be interpreted as an exploitation of power.

These are the things no management training course will ever tell you, because even in 2023, despite the fact that being disabled means organizing and managing accessibility wherever you go, there aren’t enough disabled people being hired as managers. It’s not enough to simply employ disabled people; if you want a workplace truly welcoming to disabled people, we need to be represented on all levels.