title: Leading a multicultural work environment: reflections on the next frontier of nurse leadership.
abstract: Nurses face the challenge of leading in a diverse society. Is the cross section of present-day nurse leaders prepared to meet the needs of patients and a work environment represented by a broader range of social backgrounds, cultural traditions, and languages? Fundamental to leaders' ability to meet diverse needs is a new framework for understanding the meaning of leadership, in which the issue of diversity is paramount. This article explores how the word leadership expresses a more complex system, when responsibility to address human needs is emphasized, and care for multilingual and multiethnic patients by a diverse, committed work environment is a focus. Under the umbrella of diversity, the necessary knowledge to create such a work environment may lack depth or may even be absent.
authors.affiliation: Diversity, Patient Care Services, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston.
authors.forename: Deborah
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Washington
mesh_terms: D003142:Communication; D018864:Cultural Diversity; D006801:Humans; D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D007857:Leadership; D009718:Nurse Administrators; D017132:Workplace / Q000592:standards*