Introduction
Public health leadership undergoes many challenges that have to be solved to achieve the best outcomes in practices (Hofstede, 2010). Global health leadership development cannot be stopped, and sufficient competencies are necessary (MacPhee, Chang, Lee, & Spiri, 2013). Among the problems in the chosen sphere, the challenge of bringing various groups of people in one community together to address critical public health needs (Rowitz, 2014) and the challenge of underfunding and understaffing on the basis of cultural diverse (Harvard Business Review, 2011; Dowell, Tappero, & Frieden, 2011) are chosen for the analysis.
Strategies for Challenges
The challenges can be solved with the help of different strategies and mechanism that can be implemented in the already created public health care system. For example, multicultural diversity and the associated challenges can be solved with the help of development a shared values system (a number of statements) and identification of several universal values that have to be promoted within one particular community (Rowitz, 2014; Nahavandi, 2014).
Public Health Leadership Philosophy
The philosophy of 3P’s may be chosen to solve the identified strategies and multicultural leadership challenges (Passion, Purpose, and People) (Walter, 2013). The choice of such philosophy can be explained. First, public health care cannot exist without the Passion that motivates people, makes them confident, and supports from spiritual, political, social, and many other aspects. The Purpose has to be present in any aspect of life and business and shows a leader the way to follow and organize the ideas accordingly. Finally, public health is nothing without People. The role of people is crucial, and a good leader has to understand that even the most culturally diverse staff has to be respected. Every person deserves the right to be heard and appreciated.
Description of Multicultural Leadership Challenges
Culture differentiates each group and makes it unique (Nahavandi, 2014). However, if a community is full of people with different cultural preferences and backgrounds, it creates a certain challenge that needs to be solved. Cultural knowledge has to be of a high level to understand people and meet their professional needs (Ramthun & Matkin, 2012). Therefore, to make sure that people with different cultures and interests can be gathered in one community, they have to be respected by their leaders and colleagues. In addition, underfunding (poor financial support) and understaffing (wrong choice of people and the inabilities to gather them in groups) have to be solved by leaders.
Multicultural Competencies in regards to Public Health Leadership Philosophy
Cross-cultural competence and intercultural sensitivity (Bucker & Poutsma, 2010) are chosen to influence the public health leadership 3 P’s philosophy. These competencies help to identify and incorporate cultural climate properly and understand that cultural, organizational conflicts can be easily solved by a good leader, who can impose the order and, at the same time, respect the choice of each community member (Canen & Canen, 2008).
Conclusion
In general, the challenges of underfunding, understaffing, and inabilities to unite culturally diverse employees in one community bother many leaders. They are free to choose any competencies and philosophies as every situation is unique and requires a separate approach. Therefore, the offered philosophy of 3 P’s along with intercultural sensitivity and cross-cultural competencies helps many leaders achieve good results and prove that cultural diversity is not only a challenge but a chance to create a unique team.
References
Bucker, J. & Poutsma, E. (2010). Global management competencies: A theoretical foundation. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 25(8), 829-844.
Canen, A.G. & Canen, A. (2008). Multicultural leadership: The costs of its absence in organizational conflict management. International Journal of Conflict Management, 19(1), 4-19.
Dowell, S.F., Tappero, J.W., & Frieden, T.R. (2011). Public health in Haiti: Challenges and progress. The New England Journal of Medicine, 364(4), 300-301.
Harvard business review. (2011). Managing values across cultures. Web.
Hofstede, G. (2010). The GLOBE debate: Back to relevance. Journal of International Business Studies, 41(8), 1339-1346.
MacPhee, M., Chang, L., Lee, D., & Spiri, W. (2013). Global health care leadership development: Trends to consider. Journal of Healthcare Leadership, 5, 21-29.
Nahavandi, A. (2014). The art and science of leadership. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Ramthun, A.J. & Matkin, G.S. (2012). Multicultural shared leadership: A conceptual model of shared leadership in culturally diverse teams. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 19(3), 303-314.
Rowitz, L. (2014). Public health leadership: Putting principles into practice. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Walter, E. (2013). The leadership philosophy of 3 P’s: Passion, purpose, people. TED Weekends. Web.