Cultural intelligence and diversity awareness are essential for dental practice success
Key Highlights
- Cultural intelligence helps dental leaders interpret behaviors and avoid misunderstandings across diverse backgrounds.
- Diversity skills reduce workplace bias and improve communication among dental team members.
- Understanding cultural differences in pain expression improves patient comfort and treatment acceptance.
- Celebrating varied cultural and religious holidays builds stronger, more inclusive dental office culture.
- Diversity training equips dental teams to deliver equitable care and reduce oral health disparities.
Diversity consciousness is about people trying to understand, respect, and value each other’s differences through awareness, adaptation, and accommodation in behavior and thought.1 It’s important for individuals to develop diversity skills to increase awareness and understanding, and improve communication and teamwork, which is possible when leaders value and promote it in the workplace.
The role of cultural intelligence in leadership
Having a high cultural intelligence or cultural quotient (CQ) helps people understand and interpret “someone’s unfamiliar and ambiguous gestures the way that person’s compatriots would.”2 Leaders should be on a quest to develop their diversity skills and be aware of the differences of the people at their place of work and in their personal lives.
We must know that “departments, divisions, professions, geographical regions—each has a constellation of manners, meanings, histories, and values that will confuse the interloper and cause him or her to stumble. Unless, that is, he or she has a high CQ.”2
Why diversity strengthens dental teams
Being culturally intelligent increases confidence and helps overcome barriers and obstacles. Dental teams that are diverse as well as aware of individual differences are more effective. “Cultivating a learning orientation toward diversity—one in which people draw on their experiences as members of particular identity groups to reconceive tasks, products, business processes, and organizational norms— enables companies to increase their effectiveness.”3
As our society becomes more diverse, leaders must embrace diversity,4 understand that it helps organizations stay relevant and competitive,5 understand that it helps attract and retain employees,6 and celebrate differences because this creates organizational success.7
Cultural intelligence and patient care
In a dental office, every team member should be culturally intelligent. Being educated on various cultures and religions can facilitate in understanding patient needs, values, how to conduct treatment, or even who to talk to in a family about dental fees.
Cultural and religious awareness can also help interpret gestures, mannerisms, body language, taboos of certain cultures, or whether it’s appropriate to shake someone’s hand or gently tap them on the shoulder to gain attention or show support.2
Everyone in a dental office can benefit from taking a cultural diversity course and participating in team meetings to discuss how this relates to patient care in their practice, especially because cultural competence has great impact on reducing societal oral health disparities.8
Since dentistry can be invasive to a patient’s personal space, dental professionals must be mindful and sensitive to comfort levels.8 This includes understanding that people from certain cultures are highly expressive in their reaction to pain while others are more stoic, that physical touch is acceptable and encouraged in some cultures but considered offensive in others, and that nonverbal communication such as eye contact or lack thereof can be perceived differently in varying cultures.8
Managing bias and stereotypes in the workplace
People who are culturally intelligent and have diversity consciousness skills know how to manage their own biases and stereotypes. According to Kendi, “Culture defines a group tradition that a particular racial group might share but that is not shared among all individuals in that racial group or among all racial groups.”9 Therefore, one must avoid “making individuals responsible for the perceived behavior of racial groups and making racial groups responsible for the behavior of individuals.”9
It’s important not to allow the behavior of individuals to represent an entire race or vice versa. Understanding personal bias helps someone look at others as individuals and treat them with respect and dignity without prejudice from past experiences. Those who understand, respect, and value individual differences of others have the ability to improve the workplace environment and performance.1
4 practical strategies to build diversity skills and consciousness
1. Offer diversity training to all employees “to raise awareness and develop the necessary skills to work with diverse employees internally and improve service delivery to citizens externally”10 and be culturally competent as it relates to providing dental care.8
2. Create and foster a safe organizational climate and culture that invites dialogue, engages in continuous conflict resolution, and encourages employees to voice their concerns.11
3. Celebrate all religions and cultures by offering flexible holiday time off for employees to use at their discretion.12
4. Implement theme celebrations to acknowledge various cultures.12
Creating and fostering diversity consciousness in the workplace should be a priority for all leaders. This benefits organizations both internally (healthy organizational culture, teamwork, employee retention, high performance) and externally (marketplace advantage).5-7 It helps dental professionals thoughtfully and appropriately care for patients of diverse backgrounds.2 It’s important to be aware of individual differences, because “one size does not fit all, and all people need to be taken into account."13
Editor's note: This article appeared in the October 2025 print edition of Dental Economics magazine. Dentists in North America are eligible for a complimentary print subscription. Sign up here.
References
1. Bucher DR. Diversity Consciousness: Opening Our Minds to People, Cultures, and Opportunities. 4th Ed. Prentice Hall Press; 2000.
2. Earley PC, Mosakowski E. Cultural intelligence. Harvard Business Review. 2004;82(10):139-146. https://hbr.org/2004/10/cultural-intelligence
3. Ely RJ, Thomas DA. Getting serious about diversity: enough already with the business case. Harvard Business Review. 2020. https://hbr.org/2020/11/getting-serious-about-diversity-enough-already-with-the-business-case
4. The importance of diversity in the workplace. Center for American Progress. YouTube. Accessed February 9, 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pn6WzHw7gHY
5. A look at what diversity means at Starbucks. YouTube. Accessed February 9, 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc-M5cMKQCk
6. Morley T. Making the business case for diversity and inclusion. Strategic HR Review. 2018;17(1):58-60. doi:10.1108/SHR-10-2017-0068
7. Yates H. It’s (past) time to appreciate cultural diversity. TED. Accessed September 11, 2025. https://www.ted.com/talks/hayley_yeates_it_s_past_time_to_appreciate_cultural_diversity
8. Lukes SM. Cultural competence for the dental provider. June 17, 2016. RDH. https://www.rdhmag.com/career-profession/article/16409281/cultural-competence-for-the-dental-provider
9. Kendi IX. How to be an antiracist. One World. 2019.
10. Wyatt-Nichol H, Antwi-Boasiako KB. Diversity management: development, practices, and perceptions among state and local government agencies. Public Personnel Management. 2012;41(4):749-772. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/009102601204100409
11. Velasco M, Sansone C. Resistance to diversity and inclusion change initiatives: strategies for transformational leaders. Accessed February 15, 2023. https://verticleleadership.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/OD-Journal-Fall-Velasco_Sansone-2.pdf
12. Stahl A. 10 steps businesses can take to improve diversity and inclusion in the workforce. Forbes. June 21,2020. Accessed February 17, 2025. https://www.forbes.com/sites/ashleystahl/2020/07/21/10-steps-businesses-can-take-to-improve-diversity-and-inclusion-in-the-workforce/?sh=18df79e0343e
13. Smith R. Summer school 7: Advertising and race. National Public Radio. August 19, 2020. Accessed February 9, 2025. https://www.npr.org/2020/08/19/903894678/summer-school-7-advertising-race
About the Author
Rada Kerimova, PhD, MBA, BSDH, RDH
Rada Kerimova, PhD, MBA, BSDH, RDH, has been a practicing dental hygienist since 2004. She obtained her AS in dental hygiene from Shoreline Community College, her BSDH from Eastern Washington University, and her MBA and PhD in organizational leadership and business consulting from Northwest University. When not serving and caring for her patients, she values continuous learning and personal development.