Report: The Failure of Asian Success – Five Years Later

In 2009, Ascend and the Asia Society/Northern California released two research reports that documented the Asian American glass ceiling in the Bay Area. In one report, “Bay Area Corporate Census: Asian American Executives”, it was found that the numbers of Asian Americans were substantially underrepresented in Bay Area boards and executive leadership team. A second report, “The Failure of Asian Success in the Bay Area: Asians as Corporate Executive Leaders”, raised likely reasons for the failure of Asian Americans to reach corporate leadership roles, postulated several cultural factors as root causes, and suggested business imperatives for community and corporate change.

So what happened in the five years since? The Asian community is making some progress in reaching executive leadership; but there remains a substantial gap between the numbers in the workforce and executive levels. In addition, a closer examination of the data sheds light on how limited the progress actually is.

In 2009, eight of the 25 companies examined had no Asians included in the leadership team. Five years later, it was surprising to find that even more companies, nine, had no Asians on the leadership team. In 2009, fourteen of the 25 companies had no Asian board members. Five years later, there are still thirteen with none.

Two companies, PG&E and Synnex, account for a large proportion of the Asian American executives in 2014. PG&E is noteworthy because it has two Asian Americans on its board and 9 on its leadership team, more than any other company in the Bay Area. Considering that PG&E had none on the board or leadership team in 1999, the fact that Asians now comprise 15% of its board members and 16% of its executive staff is especially intriguing and commendable for best practices. Synnex has always had a large number because it was founded in 1980 by a core team of East Asians to offer supply chain services/manufacturing in Asia.

For the past five years, Ascend the Corporate Executive Initiative (CEI) have led leadership education programs and participated in many others because they believe that the root causes are personal behavioral tendencies and not management discrimination. And they believe that requisite leadership skills can be learned with training, commitment, and practice.

In spending well over 1,000 hours collectively since 2009 teaching or mentoring aspiring Asian managers, they are convinced that the underlying root causes proposed for discussion five years ago are the critical limiting factors for many Asians. The key leadership issues continue to be:

– Cultural deference to authority and the reality that deference often implies weakness
– Ineffective communications and influencing skills
– Political naiveté/dexterity – understanding how organizational business decisions are made
– Aversion to risk-taking in business and career

Despite such efforts to mentor younger South and East Asia managers in leadership classes, panel discussions, mentoring sessions, and executive education programs, there is only modest progress, so far. In part, this is because, until recently, there have been few corporate programs created to address the Asian glass ceiling problem.

Read the rest of “The Failure of Asian Success – Five Years Later.”