Part of the insidious nature of the Bamboo Ceiling is that it does not seem to be caused by overt racism...More likely, the discrepancy in these numbers is a matter of unconscious bias. Nobody would affirm the proposition that tall men are intrinsically better leaders, for instance. And yet while only 15 percent of the male population is at least six feet tall, 58 percent of all corporate CEOs are. Similarly, nobody would say that Asian people are unfit to be leaders. But subjects in a recently published psychological experiment consistently rated hypothetical employees with Caucasian-sounding names higher in leadership potential than identical ones with Asian names.

To become a leader requires taking personal initiative and thinking about how an organization can work differently. It also requires networking, self-promotion, and self-assertion. It’s racist to think that any given Asian individual is unlikely to be creative or risk-taking. It’s simple cultural observation to say that a group whose education has historically focused on rote memorization and “pumping the iron of math” is, on aggregate, unlikely to yield many people inclined to challenge authority or break with inherited ways of doing things.

Then the author spends the rest of his time identifying specfic kinds of social skills and leadership qualities, like confidence, risk-taking, and shamelessness, and contrasting how Asians and Westerners frequently approach the development of those skills.

Different people have different behavior preferences, and if you think 'likable' means more passive rather than more aggressive, you are likely going to do the wrong thing in most social situations.