Why Aren’t There More Asian Americans in Leadership Positions?

Biz + Report Pushin Huang

Title: (1) Why Aren’t There More Asian Americans in Leadership Positions?

(2) HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT: Asian American Leaders in Silicon Valley

Author: (1) Stefanie K. Johnson and Thomas Sy (2) Buck Gee, Denise Peck, Janet Wong

When and where it was published:

1. Harvard Business Review Digital Articles, 2016.
2. Ascend Foundation, 2015

Main Idea:

These two articles shed light on a phenomenon called “bamboo ceiling”, which referred to the underrepresentation of Asian America in the business world. Although Asian American have become the country’s “model minority” for decades, there are many reasons which impede Asians reaching management and executive levels.

• Asian American are more educated, have lower unemployment rate and earn more per week on average than whites. However, according to a research conducted on five big tech firms, albeit there are 27.2% of professionals are Asian, only 13.9% of them represent executives. On the flip side, whites are 62% of professional and 80.3% of executives.
• The reasons why there are not more Asian leaders has been attributed to a gap in awareness and expectations, a lack of role models, behavior and cultural differences, etc.
• The companies should offer corporate training and help Asians develop soft skills which are necessary for people to achieve higher level positions.

Some reasons hinder Asian American to get top-level leadership would be elaborated below:

First, there are stereotypes about Asians being high on intelligent and low on social skills. However, when Asian people assert their personal power and behave in dominant ways, people also tend to judge them negatively because they violate the stereotype. According to the research, bamboo ceiling effect is even more serious than glass ceiling effect which is referred to women.

Second, eastern culture lays stress on collectivism and deference to authority so they are likely to sacrifice themselves for the corporate good. Additionally, Asians tend to avoid conflict and few of them would like to dissent from the majority decisions. Those virtues may be positive for the collective whole, yet obscure individual potential in western companies.