In our daily lives, the ability to shape the world we desire lies in connecting with others ethically and respectfully, fostering meaningful engagements, and encouraging positive actions. In the ever-evolving world of tech, Ingrid Tappin founded Diverse Leaders in Tech, emerging as a catalyst for change. With her journey from consultant to founder, her commitment to fostering a diverse and inclusive tech sector is evident, more recently explored at Techleap’s DEI in Tech Summit. More pointedly, the grounding principle within her extensive career has been inclusive leadership, coupled with testing assumptions, collective accountability, and intentional interventions to bridge the gaps in DEI. With Tappin’s insights and her application of neuroscience and inclusive leadership studies, we delve into the significance of creating inclusive workplaces and actionable steps you can take as an individual or collective.
Ruha Benjamin, author of “Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want,” urges a reevaluation of the significance of seemingly small, impactful individual actions, emphasising self-reflection and confronting roles within unjust systems—a core aspect of inclusive leadership. Benjamin prompts us to challenge inherited narratives and collaborate with others to “seed a different world.” Through understanding that incremental changes can accumulate into significant transformations, we realise the potential of inclusive leadership to create a more just and equitable society.
The energy of creating an equitable society, in which all those from diverse backgrounds feel a sense of belonging is the baseline value from which Tappin’s DEI work has been anchored. The daughter of a psychiatrist and psychologist, Tappin was born in Barbados, raised shortly in the United States and later moving to The Netherlands.
Her transitions from start-ups to corporate roles, including at Accenture and Techleap, shaped her commitment to fostering a more diverse and inclusive tech sector. Inclusive leadership as a framework found her along the way as she founded a company with friends during her studies, and as she discovered that she was committed to making a positive impact, learning more about societal change in the context of innovation, and creating value through business.
Utilising her media background, Tappin worked to build an inclusive, diverse, and equitable ecosystem at Techleap, emphasising the importance of systemic interventions.
Tappin draws attention to the need for testing assumptions, learning from them, and building intentional interventions. Her experience reveals common misconceptions about diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), particularly in the Dutch context, where diversity is often equated solely with gender diversity, overlooking other dimensions.
“There are so many things that could change the world or help improve the world when it comes to technology. But it’s also sometimes a scary development because if you don’t make sure that different people with different perspectives have influence and power in how that technology is developed or applied into businesses it can also be dangerous. I said, ‘Okay, this is what I want to do.’ I want to help organisations design the culture and leadership that they need to innovate for all.”
True DEI encompasses belonging—a space where diverse identities feel safe and can bring their whole selves to work. Tappin notes the importance of challenging assumptions, creating environments where diverse talent feels safe, and integrating DEI into every aspect of a startup, ensuring alignment with customer needs.
Ingrid Tappin, founder of Diverse Leaders in Tech
In line with this, our exploration delves into the essence of genuine DEI, emphasising the creation of inclusive spaces where diverse identities not only feel secure but are empowered to contribute their authentic selves at work. Which is why it becomes important to ensure that these principles are embedded into organisational practices, and more importantly, your HR department. Josh Bersin’s report Elevating Equity: The Real Story of Diversity and Inclusion is a comprehensive exploration, year-long research that builds on the pivotal role that a company’s leadership and culture play in shaping a more equitable workforce. A standout discovery was the limited efficacy of DEI training in fostering meaningful transformations.
Successful organisations, regardless of size or industry, stand out by prioritising systemic change. They actively listen to employees, engage skilled HR professionals, and nurture leaders dedicated to driving DEI. Establishing clear, measurable goals beyond diversity representation ensures accountability throughout the organisation. This comprehensive approach treats DEI as a business function, demanding focus from top leadership, knowledgeable HR professionals, and a dedicated DEI team, fostering a more inclusive and equitable world.
Tappin’s background allows her to embed inclusion into organisational culture. Neuroscience and inclusive leadership studies guide her, emphasising the impact of social exclusion on the brain. The SCARF model by David Rock provides actionable questions to trigger a shift from a threat to a safer state, reinforcing the active role leaders play in inclusion.
“Studying the neuroscience behind behaviour change, team performance and leadership is helpful when you are working in organisations that are really data driven. The data from MRI scans has proven to us that social exclusion is experienced in the same part of the brain where people experience physical pain.”
This is the simple way of saying, what would happen if you were going to work daily with an extreme migraine, a sprained ankle, or a terrible stomach ache? How easy is it for you to do work? How concentrated are you? How creative or social are you? We want our team to thrive, to be solution-oriented, and energised, how likely is that when we are not intentional about inclusion? How likely is that when we feel as though we are in constant pain and in a threat state?
It is easier to make people feel excluded without doing anything. If we are not intentionally inclusive, we are unintentionally exclusive. Inclusion needs both intent and action. These scientific connections are made by David Rock, one of the founders of the NeuroLeadership Institute, through the SCARF model that Tappin uses in driving DEI as a business enabler. SCARF can be broken down to Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, and Fairness. These are the five domains in which you trigger people to go from a threat state, to a toward state (the state that allows us to feel safer).
Status – Does your team feel seen and heard?
Certainty – Do they understand what is expected from them and from others?
Autonomy – Do they feel independent and empowered to make decisions?
Relatedness – What do they have in common, do they belong?
Fairness – Are they recognised and rewarded in the same ways as others?
Of course, the SCARF model is more complex than this but these guiding principles allow for a step-by-step approach to creating and sustaining inclusive leadership.
Looking at Tappin’s expertise, we see how the SCARF model creates an equitable workplace. Diverse Leaders in Tech creates an environment that fosters community, where those who’ve lived their lives on the margins feel seen and heard. It is the intentional creation of a space that connects different networks, working collaboratively to ensure that expectations within roles are understood with certainty. Together, the team builds internal awareness of DEI practices through various tools like the DEI toolbox and sustain accountability practices through benchmarks. What we learn within these practices is to ask actionable questions, form habits and behaviours that put the daunting task of DEI in each individual’s hands. When leaders understand that they need to take an active role in inclusion, they can hold themselves and their staff accountable.
Inclusive leadership, often seen as elusive, becomes attainable through intentional actions, relationship-building, and continuous learning. We’ve seen the various ways Tappin uses personal experience, neuroscience, and a belief that teaching industries can seed different worlds, to create an inclusive leadership style that makes a difference. As she would say, “it’s not easy, but it’s nor complicated.”
These principles, among others, were explored at Techleap’s DEI in Tech summit, offering opportunities to learn from experts and engage in sessions and workshops on creating an inclusive tech ecosystem—a chance to collectively build an equitable world. Access some of the takeaways from our summit here, including the DLiT and Motivaction report The State of Inclusion in Dutch Tech: Uncovering the DEI Perception Gap, that puts a mirror to our industry’s perception of DEI.
Techleap is a non-profit organisation, funded by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy, helping to quantify and accelerate the tech-ecosystem of the Netherlands. Constantijn van Oranje is Special Envoy of Techleap.
€620 million invested in Dutch startups in Q4 2023