Leadership in Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Healthcare Workplaces: A Scoping Review

Aim

To map the existing literature and research themes related to leadership in culturally and linguistically diverse healthcare workplaces and identify potential research gaps to guide future studies.

Design

A scoping review.

Methods

The review followed the Joanna Briggs Institute scoping review methodology. A total of 15,078 studies were imported into Covidence for screening. Results were analysed using inductive content analysis.

Data Sources

Searches were conducted on CINAHL, Medline (Ovid), ProQuest, Scopus, and the Finnish Medic database. Unpublished studies and grey literature were searched using MedNar. The scoping review included published and unpublished original studies in English, Finnish, and Swedish with no time or geographical limits.

Results

The review included 19 studies. This scoping review identified four main categories of leadership in culturally and linguistically diverse healthcare workplaces: promoting cultural adaptation, being a cultural mediator, ensuring competence development and continuous education, and developing culturally sensitive leadership.

Conclusions

Leaders should adopt a supportive and open leadership style to promote cultural adaptation in culturally and linguistically diverse workplaces. Leaders' cultural competence can be enhanced through continuous education and training. Leaders should provide competence development opportunities for all employees in culturally and linguistically diverse workplaces. The findings highlight the need for more research (e.g., educational intervention studies) to understand the challenges and opportunities of leading a diverse workforce in a healthcare setting.

Implications for Healthcare Management

The findings highlight the importance of leadership in promoting cultural adaptation and inclusive environments in culturally and linguistically diverse workplaces. Leaders should continually develop their cultural competence to effectively lead culturally and linguistically diverse workplaces. Developing culturally sensitive leadership requires strong communication skills and cultural understanding to promote inclusion.

Impact

Our review's results underscore the need for healthcare organisations to embrace leadership practices that are inclusive and culturally competent in increasingly diverse workplaces. As the workforce becomes more diverse, it is important to understand how leadership characteristics influence culturally and linguistically diverse healthcare workplaces.

Reporting Method

The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews was used when reporting the results.

Patient or Public Contribution

There was no patient or public contribution.

Trial Registration: The protocol was registered in the Open Science Framework (10.17605/OSF.IO/2AK73)