By: Anthea W.
As part of my internship here at ETCBC, I was asked to do a book report on a book called “Invitation to Lead” by Paul Tokunaga. This book is a training manual for Asian American leaders within a Christian community and touches on why Asian Americans all seem to behave a certain way (Confucian upbringing and collectivist societies. The book discusses how we can use our Asian American values to our advantage when leading, and how Asian American leaders can use their specific skill set to reach other Asian Americans when evangelizing or mentoring others.
The part that spoke to me the most was a chapter titled, “Understanding Our Asian DNA.” I found this section of the book to be the most intriguing and applicable because I never thought being Asian could affect the way I lead. I’ve never given much thought to how much culture has shaped me; and after reading this chapter, I realize much of my personality and leading style can be attributed to the collectivist mentality of Asian societies.
In a broad sense, collectivism is the idea that people within a society should always prioritize the good of the society over the good of the individual. Personally, being raised in this culture has made me an excellent team player who works well with others, but it has hindered my leadership in some ways. For example, I found it challenging to lead the group of camp volunteers this summer because I value group harmony to a fault. I wanted everyone to be happy and comfortable, and that made it hard to be firm with volunteers if I needed to enforce some rules. Sometimes, volunteers would understandably get distracted with their friends and begin to talk to each other more than they were talking to the children. As a leader, it was my responsibility to remind them gently of their responsibility at camp, but these conversations weren’t always easy and comfortable to have. Many times, I would wish that I had a more direct leading style but I found that my Asian American background often made it hard for me to lead when it came to discipline since it is engrained in my personality to seek the approval of others and to keep everyone happy.
Tokunaga sums up the underlying theme of his book with the quote “the nail that sticks out gets hammered down,” and I found this quote resonating with me because I have always strived to blend in, stay behind the scenes, and have rarely ever wanted to stand out. After reading this, it took me a while to figure out exactly why this quote rang true to me and I realized I don’t like to stand out because I don’t want to fail in public. A person in leadership is either showered with praise for successes or takes sole responsibility and negative criticism for any failures. I used to think I was being humble in not wanting to lead because I didn’t want the praise or attention, but I realize now that I’m more afraid of the burden of failure.
I was surprised by some of the things I found out about myself and this book has opened my eyes to why I lead a certain way, or have a reluctance to lead at all. Moving forward, I want to learn how to embrace and use my Asian American upbringing to my advantage. I want to learn how to be gentle and meek, yet bold and courageous in leading others to Christ.