Cultural diversity and Multicultural leadership. Designing a MOOC to support leadership in healthcare

Abstract

The global shortage of skilled nursing professionals together with an aging population and less young people choosing a nursing career have been estimated to lead to a more diverse and multicultural nursing workforce. The cornerstones of successful inclusion are open and authentic communication and respect. Nursing managers have a key role in creating an atmosphere of trust. Many nursing leaders and managers are faced with a new situation and don’t have enough tools to lead a diverse and multicultural team. The purpose of this thesis is to provide material and education about “How to lead a multicultural team in healthcare organization?” in the form of an online course for leaders and managers in healthcare organizations. This thesis is a functional thesis with evidence-based research. The articles in this study were solid and united in conclusions, that diverse teams perform better and increase innovations. Promoting diversity has shown to have a positive impact on overall performance, decision making and innovations. Diverse teams have doubled their chance of finding the right solution, but they are also more likely to have conflicts and longer discussions. Based on the conducted content search a massive open online course (MOOC) was created as a result of this thesis. The MOOC consists of an introduction, module 1. Cultural diversity in Finnish healthcare, module 2. Practical solutions for leading a culturally diverse team in healthcare and a workshop.