Should I lead? An intrapersonal perspective on the Asian–White leadership gap.

Abstract

Despite being seen as a "model minority," Asian Americans remain underrepresented in organizational leadership roles in North America. The existing and limited research on this topic has primarily focused on external barriers to Asians' advancement (e.g., discrimination); however, little is currently known regarding potential internal barriers that this group may also experience-and why they may arise. Across two crosssectional survey studies using undergraduate student samples (Study 1: n Asians = 205, n Whites = 290; Study 2: n Asians = 105, n Whites = 176), we consistently found that Asian Canadians reported lower affective motivation to lead and leadership self-efficacy compared to their White Canadian peers. Integrating intrapsychic versus social structural perspectives on group differences in leadership with research on implicit leadership and followership theories to explore potential explanations, these differences appeared to be driven by intrapsychic processes (i.e., personal views of the self) rather than social structural influences (i.e., metastereotypes or how others stereotype one's racial group); however, both traits typically associated with leaders and followers seem to play a role in this process. Specifically, Asian Canadians had lower self-perceptions on agency-related traits associated with followership (i.e., more conforming), in line with commonly held stereotypes about Asians, and lower self-perceptions on competence-related traits associated with leadership and followership (i.e., less intelligent and more incompetent), counter to prevalent stereotypes about Asians. Overall, this exploratory research substantiates that Asians in North America may also face significant internal barriers to pursuing leadership roles and uncovers additional complexities that warrant future examination. Public Significance StatementAsians are currently underrepresented in North American leadership roles. We explore whether this Asian-White leadership gap may be due, in part, to Asians' greater hesitancy in pursuing leadership roles than their majority group counterparts and why this occurs. Asian Canadian students were less motivated to lead and confident in leading than White Canadian students, and this may be because Asian Canadians perceived themselves as more conforming and less competent compared to how White Canadians viewed themselves.

Granting Leadership to Asian Americans: the Activation of Ideal Leader and Ideal Follower Traits on Observers’ Leadership Perceptions

“…Such backlash may then create additional pressures for Asian American workers to fulfill these stereotypes about their group (Rudman et al, 2012), further reinforcing beliefs that Asian Americans lack agency or are passive. In alignment with these arguments, Asian Canadian university students tend to perceive themselves as more conforming than their White Canadian counterparts (Kim et al, 2021). Therefore, we hypothesize the following:…”

“…There have been increasing calls to examine the role of followership in leadership outcomes, especially given the inherent need for leaders to have followers in order to lead (Carsten et al, 2010;Uhl-Bien et al, 2014). However, little is currently empirically known about how followership and leadership concepts work together to influence leadership perceptions (Kim et al, 2021). Therefore, we help to shed much-needed light on the interconnectedness of leadership and followership perceptions.…”

Emerging research in industrial–organizational psychology in Canada.

“…Taken together, the articles in this special issue (see Hideg & Krstic, 2021;Kim & Shen, 2021;Murry & Grier, 2021) point to some crucial opportunities for I-O psychology researchers to engage more deeply with EDI issues. Both Hideg and Krstic (2021), and Kim and Shen (2021), encourage future research that incorporates systemic factors in their designs and analyses. This will involve examining structural barriers to EDI, in addition to biases and prejudice at the individual level (e.g., see Cheng et al, 2020).…”

“…Related to I-O psychologists' role in creating inclusive workplaces, Kim and Shen (2021) used an intrapersonal perspective to examine mechanisms that explain the underrepresentation of Asian people in leadership positions in North America. Across two studies they found that, compared to their White Canadian counterparts, Asian Canadians reported lower affective motivation to lead as well as leadership self-efficacy.…”

“…Traits associated with both leadership and followership were integral to this process. Kim and Shen (2021) encourage organizations to broaden their view of ideal leaders to include the cultural values or strengths of Asian Canadians and other underrepresented groups. Tulk et al (2021) examine responses to individuals returning to work after a leave of absence for mental health reasons.…”