“A leader is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind," wrote Nelson Mandela in his autobiography (Long Walk to Freedom).  He went on to add that “it is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership.”  What Mandela has shared brings to surface an inherent paradox of leadership. In the United States, leadership is closely connected to charisma and visibility. If you are not visible, you are not a leader. In many other parts of the world, especially in Asian cultures, leadership is not about being visible. It is the opposite: quietly doing your work and assuming that rewards will come. Leadership is tied to Karma and a faith in meritocracy.

Can tacit assumptions about leadership lead to different outcomes regarding who occupies top leadership positions in corporate America and other organizations? What is the reason that despite founding one fourth of firms in the Silicon Valley during the technology boom, Asian Americans are still perceived as not “leadership material?” The evidence suggests that Asian Americans, a mere five percent of the U.S population has contributed a significantly high proportion of entrepreneurs and innovators. But they practice a form of quiet or invisible leadership because of an unconscious, deep rooted cultural assumption that leadership is about enabling and empowering, not about bringing attention to oneself and shining.

Consider the example of the rocket scientist-turned former President of India, Abdul Kalam. While delivering the first Satish Dhawan Memorial Lecture at the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) in 2002 Kalam said that if there were one management mantra that India should teach the world, it would be that of invisible leadership. Kalam was the beneficiary of such leadership in his career. In 1979, he was the Mission Director of India’s first satellite launch. To the embarrassment of both the scientists and the politicians supporting the mission, the satellite ALV-3 blew up over the ocean. Though Kalam was the mission director, Satish Dhawan, chairman of the space agency at that time addressed the international media and took the blame for the failed launch. A year later, the second version of the satellite was successfully launched.  Though it was a well deserved opportunity to redeem him, Dhawan did not take credit for this success.  Instead, he requested that Kalam address the media with news of the successful launch. Kalam described Dhawan as “a leader who became invisible at the time of success.”  He was a leader who took responsibility and supported his team through failure so that their work may lead to future success.  When the time of success arrived, he allowed his team to shine and gave them credit for the work they accomplished together.

On August 15, 1947, the day his long struggle yielded independence to India, Mahatma Gandhi spent most of his time nursing riot victims rather than claiming his own victory and success.  In invisible leadership, the leader “takes the full brunt of failure, but shies away from the sunshine of success, handing over the glory to team mates,” said Kalam. The kind of invisible leadership style described by Kalam finds its roots in cultures with collective mindsets.   Success belongs to the whole and not to one individual; therefore, the whole should benefit because success is mutually owned.  We would like your help in telling the story of Asian American “quiet leaders,” and the unseen contributions and challenges that Asians and Asian Americans face in the workplace. We are working on a book that will highlight the leadership contributions of Asian Americans in organizational settings. We would like to show that empowering such invisible leaders can create meaningful and positive change in organizations. The book will share approaches for recognizing quiet leaders, tools for developing and sustaining quiet leadership, and the impact of quiet leadership on innovation and change.


As part of completing this book, we would like to have the following survey filled by readers of AsianLife. The goal of this survey is to capture your views about a leadership style that may be unique to Asian Americans and about the overall Asian American experience. The survey will take less than ten minutes to complete and is anonymous. Your identity will not be known to anyone. After taking the survey, we will appreciate you forwarding the link to other Asians and Asian Americans who may be interested in it. The survey is meant to be taken by people of Asian ethnicity- Indian Americans, Chinese Americans, Korean Americans, Japanese Americans, Filipino Americans, Vietnamese Americans, etc.

Please respond before December 26. Here is the link to the survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/VKVJMP5