The month of May is Asian Heritage Month, honouring the lives and contributions of people of Asian origin.

This year, I would like to talk about one common issue among Asians—speaking up, or the lack thereof.

How often do you stop yourself from saying what needs to be said?

One of the biggest cultural differences that could hold Asians back is our tendency not to speak up. Since I was a kid, my parents and grandparents conditioned us to keep our heads down. Focus on your work, and as long as you do good work, your work will speak for itself.

This is all fine, except that in Western culture, certain behaviours are perceived as the norm. Leaders are expected to be vocal and own the stage.

I have seen firsthand very capable Asian people not getting promoted because they don’t say much. I have seen investors criticizing Asian founders for not having a take-over-the-world demeanour. In one specific example, a founder was having trouble raising capital despite the company doing really well. An existing investor (also Asian) told me privately that the main reason was that this founder didn’t act like a typical American founder.

Ouch! I instantly knew what he meant.

Speaking from my own experience, it took me decades to overcome this issue. I can’t speak for other Asian cultures, but in Hong Kong, during the era when I was growing up, parents would put masking tape on a kid’s mouth if they spoke too much. My parents never did this to me because I rarely said anything. 🙂 Even today, I have to constantly push myself to speak up. On some occasions, I still err on the side of not speaking up enough because it is still very unnatural for me. Your culture stays with you for life.

I can’t tell you exactly how to overcome this issue. To a degree, it has to come from within. You have to find your own way. For me, I kept telling myself I needed to err on the side of speaking up too much. Trust me, even with that, the end result is that on many occasions I still find myself thinking I could have spoken up more, even today. So, imagine if I didn’t give myself a little nudge. It took years of practice to overcome my own emotions. Eventually, I got used to it. Well, most of the time.

However, I don’t mean to say that it is all on Asians’ shoulders to overcome this. Asian or not, great leaders have the responsibility to create a safe environment for everyone to speak up in the first place.

Humility and kindness are great traits in Asian culture. Keep them. It is also okay to push yourself to be more vocal. The barrier is totally breakable, especially one step at a time. You just have to keep pushing. After all, speaking up is not mutually exclusive with your heritage!

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