Sometimes the Best Leadership Tool Can Be Found for $12 at Target

What my 2E kid’s binder system taught me about leading people and supporting employees

I want to tell you about my kid.

They are twice exceptional, a.k.a. 2E. Twice exceptional means exactly what it sounds like: exceptional in more than one direction. Gifted in ways that genuinely take your breath away, and wired differently in ways that mean the standard systems often don’t support that non-standard brilliance. More practically, it means that they are both exceptionally intelligent and neurodiverse.

Organization has always been a challenge for us. Their backpack was less of a bag and more of a filing system designed by a nerdy raccoon with packrat tendencies — crumpled assignments from three weeks ago living alongside a D&D Monster Manual, random dice, half-finished maps, and what I can only assume was a snack-sized ziplock of pretzel crumbs from the previous school year. Transitions were hard too. In 2nd and 3rd grade, they needed 1:1 support from an adult after every recess just to ease back into the classroom. By 4th grade, just after lunch. By 5th, not at all.

So when middle school arrived... eight periods a day, four minutes between each one, eight different teachers, a locker, and a rotating schedule... let's just say I was braced for impact.

And I was so wrong.

What I Expected vs. What Actually Happened

My kid is organized. Not my-way organized, but their-way organized. And not only are they very different-looking things, only one of them would actually work for my kid... spoiler alert: it's not my way.

They figured out a binder system. They are tracking their assignments. They know what’s due, what’s missing, and what needs to get done tonight. They are more on top of their schoolwork than I was at the same age (apologies to my middle school math teacher, Mr. Farr), and I did not have the kind of brain that requires the level of support they do.

While troubleshooting and trying to figure out this personal system, my kid told me about their biggest frustration and barrier to making the binder thing work for them.

They were frustrated that every handout required them to poke holes before it could go in the binder. The poked hole often ripped or wrinkled the sheet, and it was annoying.

When I told my kid about the portable hole-punch, their eyes got huge. "Do you think I could get one?" They asked. I ordered one that afternoon. It made all the difference.

The Hole Punch Is the Whole Point

I want to sit in that moment for a second, because I think it says a lot about what good support actually looks like.

I didn’t redesign the binder system. I didn’t take over the organizing. I didn’t offer twelve suggestions for how they could solve the problem differently. My kid identified a specific friction point, discovered and asked for a tool to assist, and I responded to exactly that ask.

One hole punch. Clipped to the rings of the binder. Ready to be used anytime and anywhere. Problem solved.

Leaders (and parents) are wired to solve the whole problem. We see the messy binder, and we want to fix the whole system. Or sometimes we go the other direction and say “figure it out” and disappear. Neither of those would have actually solved this issue. What happened was: I listened, I suggested an idea/tool but didn't mandate it, they made a request for the tool, and I responded to that exact ask.

That’s it. That’s the whole leadership lesson in a $12 Target purchase.

But It Didn’t Start With the Hole Punch

Here’s what happened before the hole punch, because the hole punch only worked because of everything that came first.

We did a warm handoff between my kid’s elementary school counselor and their new middle school counselor. We made sure every teacher had read the IEP before the first day. We went to back-to-school night and walked to every classroom, met every teacher, and mapped the physical space — which, helpfully, the school had designed thoughtfully, with all 6th grade core classes clustered in one wing so the transitions are shorter and the environment is less overwhelming.

We talked through what middle school would be different. We asked my kid what they were worried about and what tools they’d already been building. We didn’t tell them what to worry about. We didn’t share our own anxiety about the eight periods and the four minutes between them. We did our own prep work, the warm handoffs, the IEP meetings, the classroom walks, so that our anxiety had somewhere to go that wasn’t onto them.

My kiddo already carries enough. They didn’t need our doubts too.

We also made a deliberate decision about electives. We were tempted to nudge them toward things that would broaden their horizons (music, sports, or a foreign language). We decided that this year, when everything else was already asking a lot, they got to choose whatever they wanted (which turned out to be engineering and robotics). Growth in every direction simultaneously isn’t always growth, and that wouldn't set my kid up for success. There was already enough to be overwhelmed about, so we made the workload more realistic by protecting their choice.

And before school even started, we got them a cell phone. And we intentionally gave it to them before school, not as a reward for proving they could handle the responsibility (although that privilege could be suspended if needed). We gave it to them so they would see that we believed they could do it; they didn't need to prove it in advance. Here’s a tool. Here’s the trust. Show us what you do with it.

The Framework That Was Actually an IEP

What I didn’t realize until I was telling this story is that what worked for my kid isn’t just a parenting strategy. It’s a leadership framework. And the reason it’s so clear to me is that neurodivergent kids need what everyone needs, just made explicit and intentional.

Here’s what the scaffold actually looked like:

A good environment. Classrooms near each other. A school that thought about physical friction before the kids arrived. You cannot coach someone past a badly designed environment.

Physical and practical tools. The binder. The hole punch. The cell phone. Specific things that make the system work for this specific person. Not generic solutions. Actual tools for actual friction points.

A change management plan. The warm handoff. The IEP meetings. The classroom walk. Transitions don’t manage themselves, and assuming people will just figure it out is how you lose people in the first four minutes of the period change.

Operational support. Google Classroom so assignments are visible in real time. A flex period at the end of the day where students work on missing assignments with faculty available, and if everything is done, they get to go to clubs (my kid is in Chess Club, GSA, The Asian Pacific Islander Student Union, and DnD Club... the nerd is strong in our gene pool). The structure of the day has built-in recovery and support without making it punitive.

Emotional support. Someone paying attention to how it feels, not just how it’s going. Checking in. Noticing. Praising when deserved. And not being overly critical.

Psychological safety. Room to have a bad week, dust off, and keep going. Room to try a system that doesn’t work and try a different one. Room to ask for a hole punch without being told the whole binder approach is wrong or to make do without it.

Realistic expectations without baggage. The bar was clear. Whether they’d clear it was their story to write, not ours to pre-load with our own anxiety.

What This Has to Do With Supporting Employees

Everything.

The model that worked for a twice-exceptional kid navigating middle school is the same model that works for the new employee navigating their first ninety days. The experienced employee in a new role. The high performer who is struggling in a season of high demand. The person who keeps getting feedback about organization but nobody has ever asked what’s actually creating the friction. The person who needs a simple tool, but the organization didn't include it in this fiscal year's budget.

Many organizations skip straight to expectations and accountability and then wonder why people aren’t performing. Many leaders either solve the whole problem or disappear. Very few ask “what specific thing would make this easier?” and then just go buy the damn hole-punch.

The scaffold isn’t complicated. It’s just rare.

Clear expectations. The right tools. A thoughtful environment. Operational systems that support rather than obstruct. Emotional presence. Psychological safety. And the discipline to hold your own doubts while you give someone the room to exceed them.

It looks different for every person. The model is the same.

Okay, so…

My kid is a rockstar. Not because everything came naturally (it didn't) and not because we had a perfect plan (it wasn't). But because they were given what they needed, trusted to figure out what they needed when we missed it, and allowed to succeed in their own way. Also, they are just friggin' cool.

But that is the job. Whether the person in front of you is a twice-exceptional sixth grader navigating a rotating schedule, or a new team member navigating a role that’s bigger than anything they’ve done before. And whether or not they're friggin' cool.

Find the balance. Hold your doubts. Get the hole punch.

Building leaders who give people what they actually need?

That’s what SparkGrowth does. Let’s talk.

The Research (click to expand)

Blanchard, K., Zigarmi, P., & Nelson, R. (1993). Situational Leadership? after 25 years: A retrospective. Journal of Leadership Studies, 1, 22–36. https://doi.org/10.1177/107179199300100104

Deci, E. L., Connell, J. P., & Ryan, R. M. (1989). Self-determination in a work organization. Journal of Applied Psychology, 74(4), 580–590. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.74.4.580

Edmondson, A. C. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350–383. https://doi.org/10.2307/2666999