Telling your team you're dyslexic: a 4-sentence script

Over 1,400 dyslexic adults answered a Dyslexia Scotland and University of Glasgow survey, published in October 2024, and only 41% of them received reasonable adjustments at work. Of those who did, 25% found the adjustments very or extremely helpful. You're a senior leader, you've built your own adjustments, and now your team is starting to ask why.

Maybe you request papers the day before. Maybe you put headphones on during screen shares, or you pass your own drafts to a second reader. Colleagues notice patterns, and when nobody explains one, they fill the gap themselves.

The moment your team starts guessing

People rarely say it out loud. They decide you're disorganised, or slow to engage, or that you don't read what they send. A leader who asks for a deck in advance can look controlling to a team that doesn't know why.

Silence does a different kind of damage. When a typo reaches the board pack, the team has no frame for it, and the story that spreads is about carelessness. You can replace that story with a fact in under a minute.

Nobody has to tell colleagues anything. The choice is yours, and plenty of dyslexic directors never mention it. But if your adjustments are visible and unexplained, you're already disclosing something. You're just not the one writing the words.

If colleagues keep asking about a habit of yours, that's the signal to explain it on your terms.

Two disclosures, and only one has legal weight

Telling your employer and telling your team are separate acts. In the UK, the duty to make reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act 2010 depends on what the employer knows. Schedule 8, paragraph 20 says an employer isn't required to adjust if it doesn't know, and couldn't reasonably be expected to know, that you're disabled and disadvantaged.

A casual mention to a peer may not reach that threshold. A dated email to your line manager or HR does. Our piece on the Young v YTL Construction ruling shows what that email should contain: the task, the effect on you, and the change you want.

The US works differently. Under the ADA, the accommodation process starts when you ask your employer, and the EEOC says employers must keep medical information confidential. Whatever you tell HR shouldn't travel on its own, so any team announcement is yours to time and word.

That second figure matters for a leader. Adjustments that nobody around you understands tend to be generic, and generic adjustments often miss the actual task. A team that understands what you need can help you get the specific version.

Put the legal disclosure in writing to your employer first, then decide separately what the team hears.

The four-sentence script

Keep it short enough to say without notes. Say it plainly, as information. Four sentences cover it, and each one does a different job.

A script you can adapt

Sentence one names it: “I'm dyslexic.” Sentence two says what it affects: “Reading dense text live takes me longer, and I'll sometimes miss a typo in my own writing.” Sentence three says what you'll do: “So I'll ask for papers a day ahead, and I'll use read-aloud on screen shares.”

Sentence four says what you want: “If you spot an error in something I've sent, tell me directly, because that's the quickest help you can give.” Then move on to the agenda. A long pause invites a long discussion, and you don't need one.

The script has no apology in it and makes no promise of flawless work from the day you speak. It also hands your colleagues a job, which makes them part of the solution rather than an audience.

Say it once, live, with your camera on if you're remote. An email can feel like a formal notice and invites reply-all. A short spoken moment feels like information from a colleague.

Write your own four sentences today, and say them aloud once so they sound like you.

What the adjustments cost your team

Most leaders overestimate the burden. The Job Accommodation Network surveyed US employers who contacted it between 2019 and 2024. Of the 1,425 who gave cost information, 872 (61%) said their accommodation cost nothing.

For those that did cost something, the median one-time cost was $300, based on 434 responses. A day's notice on papers costs nothing. Read-aloud software is built into Microsoft 365 and most phones. If a second reader is the adjustment, the cost is a few minutes of a colleague's time.

This is US data, so don't quote it as a UK finding. The Access to Work scheme in Great Britain can fund larger items such as software or a support worker, and our Access to Work calculator shows what you might claim. Either way, the cost conversation is usually shorter than the awkward feeling before it.

When you tell the team, say the adjustments are cheap and specific, because that's usually true.

Answering the questions that follow

Someone will ask something in the next day or two. Usually it's well meant: “Does that affect your spelling?” or “Is that why you like the notes sent early?” Answer briefly and truthfully, and don't turn it into a seminar.

A useful reply is one sentence about the effect and one about the fix. “Yes, I read slowly under pressure, so I like a day with the paper.” That keeps the conversation about work.

You'll also meet the colleague who says they're a bit dyslexic too, or that everyone mixes up words sometimes. Take it kindly. You don't need to correct them, and you can say that your own pattern is consistent and you've built your habits around it.

Then watch what changes. If papers arrive earlier, the script worked. If they don't, repeat the request once in writing, because a spoken agreement is easy to forget in a busy week.

Prepare one-sentence answers now, so the first question doesn't catch you cold.

When to wait, and what the call is

There are moments to hold back. If you're in a dispute about your performance, or a restructure is under way, write to HR first and keep the team announcement for later. A written record made before a decision is worth more than a speech made after it.

Your team may also react badly. Most won't, but a joke or an eye-roll from one person is possible. Having the facts in writing with your employer means a bad reaction from a colleague doesn't undo your position.

Here's the call. If you lead a team and your adjustments are visible, do this in order. Email HR or your manager with the task, effect and change. Wait for the acknowledgement. Then tell your team in a live meeting, using four sentences, within a week.

If your adjustments are invisible, you can stay quiet and lose nothing. The disclosure decision guide walks through the trade-offs for each situation, and it covers the UK and US separately.

The written disclosure protects you, and the spoken one stops the guessing.

For more scenarios at director level, browse the article archive or read how another leader handled managing a team while dyslexic.