Time for Asian Leaders to Arise！

My Evolution Into Leadership 

I spent the first 30 years of my life living in America. I thought of myself as an American, but nearly every day of my life I was reminded of being in a different class. I’d hear the derogatory “Ching Chong Chinaman” or kids would use their fingers to slant their eyes. It was a struggle to date the pretty Caucasian women. I always felt rightly or wrongly that they didn’t find Asian men attractive. Don’t get me wrong. I had a wonderful childhood. But feeling like an outsider, I had to quickly realize reality and make the necessary adjustments.

I could have accepted this disadvantage and taken the usual Asian approach of “putting my head down” and work hard. But I quickly discovered it wasn’t enough to break through this ceiling. I needed to transform myself to get into a position of leadership in a global environment. 

I needed a mindset change in realizing the common definition of leadership was all wrong for me. It’s not about directness or authoritarianism (not me), it’s all about getting people to willingly follow (that’s me). It’s about building win-win relationships and forging commitment over compliance. This transformation allowed me to build followership in order to achieve executive positions in Pepsi and Nike and to create the Lance Tanaka Group of companies to develop Asian leaders in the best of the best global companies. 

Why are there few Asians in top positions in non-Asian companies? 

According to the Harvard Business review of the 100 CEOs that were ranked by HBR, 10 were Asians, though 8 were actually working at Asian companies. 

So, what is the root of the problem? 

The Asia Society hosted a sold-out audience for a frank, spirited discussion about Asian American corporate leadership in San Francisco. Specifically, why, in a city that is one-third Asian, are there so few Asian-Pacific CEOs, board members, and executive leaders? 

Is it, as one audience member put it, that “Asians are thinkers, not talkers?” Our panelists disagreed, and the rest of the audience didn’t seem to be buying it either. 

Is the problem discrimination? Many agreed that that is an issue, but that it’s becoming less of one for younger APIs.

More than anything, panelists stressed that becoming a leader is hard, whatever one’s background. The challenge is building the skill set necessary to be a leader. But with planning and effort, these skills can be learned, and corporations themselves can provide crucial help as well.                                       --Asia Society

As Asians, we need to adjust our mindsets to the new global reality, identify the skills that are authentic to ourselves (reflecting ethnic culture as well as individualities) and develop and leverage them to transform into a global leader. 

Three Steps To Evolve Into A Global Leader

Be transformational

Identify your limiting or outdated mindsets and adjust them to fit today’s challenges to leadership. The are no longer local markets, everything is global. Therefore, learn how to lead people from different backgrounds and cultures.

Be authentic

Be more of who you were designed to be. There are basically two things you can leverage to becoming distinctive, your strengths and your passions. Therefore, identify them, develop plans to further develop them, and get more of them into your career and life. 

“The only way to do great work is to love what you do.”  -- Steve Jobs

Be accountable to yourself

Stop being a victim. Complaining and doing nothing is just complaining. It will not change or improve the situation. This can make you feel like a victim. Instead gain control. Taking the small steps, enjoying the process, achieving small victories will show you that you can start to gain control over your life, career, health, finances, etc.

“Harvard Business School professor Teresa Amabile has found that the answer is simply progress. A sense of forward motion. Regardless how small. Amabile found that minor victories at work were nearly as psychologically powerful as major breakthroughs. And momentum isn’t just a powerful ingredient of success. It’s also a powerful predictor of success.”    –Smartcuts by Shane Snow

The definition of “rise” is move from a lower to a higher place. “Arise” means to come into being, the emergence of an opportunity. So, Asians arise! I’m not proposing a revolution, but an evolution. This is not about defeating the enemy (we have none). It’s about us taking responsibility to do the heavy lifting of breaking out of the “keep your head down” mode, developing and evolving to becoming a global leader.