Tanachia Ashikali's research focuses on leadership, diversity management, inclusiveness, and teamwork in public organizations. She actively engages with practitioners through invited talks, workshops, and research collaborations on leadership and inclusiveness in various (semi-) public institutions.

More information about Tanachia Ashikali

Tanachia Ashikali's research focuses on leadership, diversity management, inclusiveness, and teamwork in public organizations. She actively engages with practitioners through invited talks, workshops, and research collaborations on leadership and inclusiveness in various (semi-) public institutions. She teaches courses on leadership and public management and supervises master theses on these and related topics.

Ashikali received her PhD in Public Administration from Leiden University in 2018. The dissertation combines mainstream management and public management literature and studies how diversity management and leadership relate to inclusiveness in public organizations and individual employee and team outcomes. She examined quantitative survey data on both the individual and team level and shows that inclusiveness is about team members feeling they belong to the group, while they can have their own authentic identities. Inclusive leadership stimulates this by encouraging diverse team members to value, exchange, discuss and learn from their different backgrounds, perspectives, and ideas. Inclusiveness in turn contributes to employees’ organizational commitment and involvement. This is particularly required in a changing society demanding of public organizations to be adaptive and responsive.

Grants and Awards

In 2019, Tanachia received a LUF grant to study determinants of inclusive leadership in public organizations. For her article, on diversity management, transformational leadership, inclusiveness, and employees’ affective commitment co-authored with prof. Sandra Groeneveld, she was granted the best article published in 2015 award by the journal Review of Public Personnel Administration.

Publications