Silent Success: Successful Traits, Influences, and Experience of Selected Asian American Leaders in Corporations

The purpose of this study is to examine and identify the successful traits, influences, and experiences of Asian American leaders/managers who are within corporations of the U.S. Twenty study participants provided insights into what lead them to be leaders/managers within their respective corporations. Teamwork, parental influence, and educational goals were the major characteristics and predominant themes that the study participants revealed. The teamwork theme divided into sub-categories of caring about others, communication, and role modeling/mentoring. Further, English language proficiency emerged as a subcategory of communication. A future study could address the reasons behind the low population of Asian American leaders/managers in the technical and engineering fields despite having a high employment population in that sector. Another study could investigate the reasons behind the low population numbers of female Asian Americans leaders/managers. Lastly, a future study would answer the question of whether a higher academic degree truly results in vertical movement in an organization, which is a prevalent characteristic of the study participants.