Silent Success

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.