Cultural Competence in Nursing Leadership and Management - Samples

Question: Discuss about the Cultural Competence in Nursing Leadership and Management. Answer: Cultural Competence in Nursing Leadership and Management Transcultural awareness and competency are two concepts that are occupying a pivotal role in the nursing field. Nursing is a profession that interacts with people from all over the world, and there is a need to exercise cultural competence in addressing the issues of health care disparities. This paper will analyze the idea of cultural competence in nursing leadership and management. The paper will first define cultural competence and then relate it to the theory of emotional intelligence. Further, the paper will discuss the leaders influence to reach a culturally competent healthcare. Definition of Culturally Competent Care By analysis of various medical definitions, the profession of nursing defines cultural competence as the nurse knowledge and understanding of the peoples cultures. It is an adaptation to consumers way of life regarding health approaches and interventions. A review by (Dauvrin Lorant, 2015) states that cultural competence is a concept within a healthcare professional that recognizes the significance of culture. The work further says that cultural competence is a practice that assesses cross-cultural relations. Therefore, it requires healthcare professionals to tailor their services to meet the health demands as shaped by diverse cultures of their patients. A culturally competent health care system acknowledges, integrates, and interacts with health dilemmas from different consumer populations. Healthcare professionals must be cultural sensitive, self-aware, and have personal experience by interacting with patients coming from diverse cultural backgrounds (Cicolini et al., 2015). Conferring with Sperry (2012) interpretation, a culturally competent person can naturally and efficiently exercise cultural awareness, knowledge, skills, and sensitivity while caring for people coming from diverse cultural backgrounds. However, it is not just enough to have all these skills. The important thing is their application in solving difficult situations. From a healthcare point of view, cultural competence refers to a professional set of skills, knowledge, and understanding of diverse groups. These attributes enable someone to assist patients coming from different cultural beliefs comfortably. It also includes the respect to patients culture and avoiding a bias influence while offering care to the patient (Hines, 2014) Literature Review A few studies (El Amouri ONeill, 2014; Cicolini et al., 2015; Dauvrin Lorant, 2015; Soule, 2014) stressed the importance and outlined the understanding of cultural competence. According to (El Amouri ONeill, 2014), the study explained cultural competence as nurse capability to undertake their duties within different families, clients, or communities cultural context. This study conducted a purposive sample that involved six government and four private hospitals. In total, 153 nurse-leaders agreed to participate. The study found that there is a demand for cultural competence in the delivery of care due to the increasing immigration. The study also demonstrated a need for the nurse leadership to promote staffs capacity to exercise practical and relevant cultural competency in all healthcare settings. This technique will see healthcare setting embrace the increasing multicultural mix. In the study of (Cicolini et al., 2015), the work defined cultural competence as a process where healthcare professionals integrate their cultural awareness, sensitivity, and experience in ones professional practice. The study used the highest degree of neutrality to identify healthcare leaders in respective health service. This cross-sectional study concluded the presence of three aspects. The first one was a reasonable cultural competence performance. The second one was a moderate-high cultural sensitivity, and last one was an average cultural awareness among the nurses. In the study of (Dauvrin Lorant, 2015), an analysis of 507 healthcare specialists revealed their social relationships while they interacted with other healthcare professionals. The study sort to relate the cultural competence of two healthcare groups. That is; it projected to match healthcare leaders' cultural competence against the followers' (staffs) cultural competence. This study identified a close association between the two groups cultural competence. This analysis noted that cultural competence is an element that affects healthcare leadership significantly. Soule (2014) undertook a study that aimed to examine the cultural competence within a healthcare setting. The survey defined cultural competence as healthcare professionals approach that focuses on care that respects the consumers values and beliefs. The author focused on a qualitative analytical design. Her study involved international participants from different disciplines such medicine, social sciences, nursing, and medicine. This approach allowed her to acquire comprehensive information regarding cultural competence. The study concluded that cultural awareness involves three themes, the awareness, involvement, and application. Even though this study described each theme, it failed to focus on cultural competence within the nursing discipline. The Impact of Nurses Emotional Intelligence to Improve Cultural Competency There have been lots of studies on the topic of emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence (EI). EI is ones capacity to effectively understand and control ones emotions and those of others (Harms Crede, 2010). EI is a personal characteristic that has a significant impact on the concept of cultural competency in the healthcare profession. There are five components of emotional intelligence. These include the self-awareness, emotional social skill, self-regulation, empathy, and internal motivation (Harms and Crede, 2010). Emotional Self-awareness This element is the ability to recognize ones feelings, the cause of those feelings, biases, and their sensitivities (Rosenstein, 2015). Emotional self-awareness further allows someone to grasp the development of the emotions and their potential. Understanding personal feelings provide adequate self-support. It then extends to help someone with the strength to support others in their difficult times. In a healthcare setting, EI helps one to acknowledge and form a deeper knowledge of the different cultures while interacting with patients and their family members. Before attending to a patient, EI allows clinicians to examine their self-reflection before engaging with a patient. After that, they get the strength to study their cultural values, behaviors or beliefs. If the examination of these attributes confirms that one cannot manage their biases while handing the patient, they should understand that limitation and allow another competent colleague to attend to the patient. For exampl e, if a nurse is aware that she cannot give a reasonable counseling on abortion due to her cultural beliefs, then she should allow other nurses to do it. Self-awareness also allows a nurse to understand their culture, accept the cultural differences, and diversities. It doesnt matter how much power or title that someone has. What matters is recognizing the patients culture, and desisting from giving a treatment that the patient claims that it is against his or her culture. Self-regulate This element is ones ability to manage disruptive thoughts and moods. It is also the ability to revisit judgments and to think before acting on them. This EI component enables a nurse to show trustworthiness, integrity and accommodate changes. Since healthcare involves diverse cultures, self-regulation allows a nurse to incorporate a new positive behavior that is different from his/her own culture. It is more of fitting into a new lifestyle. For instance, a nurse brought up in the USA would need to self-regulate his/her beliefs to fit in in the daily routines of Indian patients if he/she is working in India. Empathy This one is the capacity to understand other peoples emotional makeup (Fitzpatrick McCarthy, 2016). These skills can be seen in the way leaders lead their team, manage and build trust. In a healthcare setting, professionals should understand that health care systems interact with people from diverse cultures. As diversity across the cultures increase, nurses would need to deal with day-to-day challenges coming from patients as well as ethical dilemmas. Further, as the healthcare embraces technology, this will be another world that also comes with its problems. Nurses would need to be stronger as they work in a collaborative team that is both in the same room or on the network. Internal motivation Motivation in IE means a persons desire to work for good reasons that are outside financial gains. It is a passion to work to save lives, bringing joy to others, or a willingness to learn. It is a tendency to follow goals with liveliness and persistence. In (Paez, Allen, Carson Cooper, 2008), the cross-sectional study aimed at determining whether a relationship exists between cultural motivation and work competence. The study found that care providers who demonstrated attitudes that reflected greater cultural motivation did not have difficulties in reducing disparities. Social Skills These are competent skills that enable people to manage their relationships and build networks (Singh Dali, 2013). It is the capacity to get along with others by finding common ground and building a rapport. In healthcare, of social skills include effectiveness in organizing changes, being persuasive, creating and managing teams (Goleman 1996). Healthcare leaders need to be conversant with social skills that eliminate language and cultural barriers. EI can help healthcare leaders to handle sociocultural factors such as community differences, moral, customs, ethics, language, and other cultural beliefs (Parvanta, Nelson Harner, 2017). For example, different cultures use body language, interpersonal distances, or eye contacts to communicate different meaning. A mismatch of any of the body languages may create a cultural norm problem hence raising an ethical question. A Review of Emotional Intelligence Theory as A Theoretical Approach Cultural Competence in Healthcare Delivery In healthcare, as with other sectors, intelligence is a significant factor for efficient performance. Healthcare profession cuts across different backgrounds of patients and families. All these people come with anxiety, and problems regarding their diagnosis, treatment, and financial complexities. Emotional intelligence is helpful among other qualities of a healthcare profession. In the healthcare environment, health workers also encounter other problems like misunderstanding among themselves and hurdles of organizational culture. The required skills for a healthcare professional falls either under soft and hard skills (Klaus, 2008). Hard skills are the practical skills that someone can learn from a training such as medical schools or advanced nursing training. On the other hand, soft skills are distinct, and they include interpersonal, professionalism, and communication skills among others (Vijayalakshm, 2017). The application of all these skills relies heavily on emotional intelligence. The two components of EI are the personal and social emotions (Mandal, Shanwal Emmerling, 2008). Therefore, from a theory point, EI refers to a wide range of professional competencies. In practice, any leader can only accomplish the work objectives through others. Healthcare leaders oversee the care efforts of other staff members. At all levels, leaders and other professionals set the EI culture. This culture has direct impacts on their relationships with patients and that with their colleagues (Mrkonjic Grondin 2011). When a healthcare system overlooks the development of the EI culture, the professionals dispose themselves to disruptive behaviors (Oliveira et al., 2016). Creating healthcare environments that are non-focused leads to emotional exhaustion and poorer emotional health in nurses (Cummings 2009). Creating the same healthcare with EI environment enhances nurse satisfaction, and retention (Cummings 2009). Poor EI in healthcare does damage the organizations reputation. Patients are likely to seek services elsewhere where nurses understand their diversity. Reuven Bar-On, a pioneer scholar in EI, provides a compelling description of EI as an array of non-cognitive competencies, capabilities, and skills that inspires ones ability to do well in coping with environmental stresses and pressures (Stein Book, 2010). Indeed, public health and private healthcare are fields troubled with environmental pressure and demands with which nurses must endlessly persevere. Emotional Intelligence is a vehicle for building alliances. It is a tool for repairing damaged relationships. Healthcare leaders and professionals must understand the challenging nature of the work and the difficult times that fray relationships due to cultural backgrounds, discriminations, need for recognition, or competition for opportunities. However, the same people that have diverse cultures in the same arena must rely on each other for survival. Nurses need their colleagues as the colleagues need them. Similarly, patients need the nurses as nurses need them. Goleman is another leading scholar of EI. He suggested that 67% of the required competencies for successful leaders fall under the realm of emotional intelligence (Goleman 1996). He stated that emotional intelligence was a skill that has two dimensions. The first one is the personal competence and the other one as the social competence. In the study of (Gorji1 Ghareseflo, 2011), the report sort to examine the relationship between cultural and emotional intelligence. It also studied the effects of EI in the university employees performance. The sampled composed of 115 randomly selected employees. This study found that application of EI in a culturally diverse working relationship increased employees performance. While emotional intelligence skills might not be innate, one can develop them through learning (Goleman 1996). Also, the development of these skills requires a willingness to adjust personal shortcomings and to show a sense of humility. Unlike cognitive skills where you can correct an error through referring to the facts or honing up behavioral skill, correcting EI works through taking feedbacks positively even though they feel personal. Influence of leaders on the cultural competence of healthcare professionals. Culturally competence in healthcare is a practice drawn from the provision of the social impartiality and principles of fundamental rights irrespective of the social framework. The provisions of social justice and application of cultural competence in healthcare can significantly reduce disparities. Currently, there are global migrations. This migration causes a shortage of nurses, and a need for culturally competence skills among nurses (Miller et al., 2008). One role of healthcare leaders is to advocate for equality and the rights of the disadvantaged. Despite that leaders start by encouraging this practice within a small group of employees, the practice will eventually transform the organizational culture and consumers will know that the institution treats everyone with respect. In (Dauvrin Lorant, 2015), the study hypothesized that healthcare workers would become cultural competent by observing how their leaders practice it. The study also hypothesized that the characters of a leader could have a significant effect on the healthcare management including the efficacy of cultural competence. The study discovered an improvement of cultural competence among healthcare staffs due to their association with their culturally competent leaders. Culturally competency in nursing leadership is a tool setting for a change in self, the organization, and other staffs to accomplish effective health results for the entire society. In (El Amouri ONeill, 2014), the study reported that leaders of both public and private hospitals practice cultural competence. The leaders demonstrated an insight that multicultural care practice is an aspect that can have a significant impact on health provision. However, this purely depends on the way healthcare leaders handle the issue. The ultimate goal of this study was to examine the effects of leadership styles and their influence to the other workers cultural competence. This study found that leadership style can significantly impact the way the staffs performance regarding the expectations of a healthcare institution. Different leadership styles bestow different freedom of management to the leaders (El Amouri ONeill, 2014). An authoritarian leadership style is more likely to restrict leaders in making and implementing changes. On the other hand, transformative style can stimulate the intellectual capacity of the employees (El Amouri ONeill, 2014). Therefore, transformati on leadership has higher chances of incorporating new changes to include cultural competence that the authoritarian style. Organizational factors are another approach that can also influence cultural competence. According to (Dauvrin Lorant, 2015), the degree of support that the organizational environment offers in encouraging cultural competence determines how health professionals would develop their cultural competence. There are various avenues for this approach. Healthcare agencies and organizations can provide the infrastructure that supports culturally congruent to the consumers (Douglas et al., 2009). Similarly, organizations can strengthen the realm's workforce by cultivating cultural competency through action plans, training, and education. For instance, (Jackson Gracia, 2014) states that U.S. government agencies, private and academic institutions provide educational materials to support health-care providers in acquiring and applying cultural competency skills. Also, the work of (Wilson-Stronks, Lee, Cordero, Kopp, Galvez, 2008) states that it is the responsibility of the organizations leade rship to implement policies and procedures that aim at optimizing the channels for care in culturally diverse populations. The work also states that leaders should ensure the integration of such policies throughout the organization. Recommendations for Supporting Nurse Leaders in Ensuring the Effective Delivery of Culturally Competent Care. There are numerous avenues for effective delivery of a culturally competent care. However, the journey begins with healthcare leaders themselves learning and readdressing the issue of cultural competency. They should lead other staff by undertaking a cultural awareness competent training. In (Ong-Flaherty, 2015), the work states that education approach supported by leaders is one mechanism for developing critical cultural awareness. The work also recommends exposure to new cultures through a method of cross-cultural interactions. This technique can enhance cultural relativity and cultural humility. Another recommendation regards both the healthcare organizations setting and health care providers. In (Saha, Beach Cooper, 2008), the study recommends that healthcare leaders should implement principles that focus on both cultural competence and patient centeredness. In this approach, this study finds that the method will enable the alignment of services to meet the requirements of all patients, families and other disadvantaged groups. As many disparities in health care are the main outcome of cultural barriers, almost all dimension for improving cultural competence recommends awareness of the diverse culture. For instance, in the study of (Horvat, Horey, Romios Kis-Rigo, 2014), the study meant to assess the influences of cultural competence teaching on the performance of health professionals on different patient-related instances. The study concluded that cultural competence is a continuous learning process. The training showed a significant improvement in the practice of cultural competence in the provision of care. Conclusion Cultural competence is not an optional skill in a healthcare setting. It has now become an element that determines the entire qualification of a heathcare professional. Also, cultural competence go hand in hand with emotional intelligence. These are some of the skills that every nurse should have so that they would be able to serve the public at any part of the world. 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