‘Leadership looks white’: Asians struggling to land senior roles

Asian professionals are struggling to break into senior management circles in New Zealand's public sector.

People of Asian descent with experience in the public sector blamed language barriers, unconscious bias and unclear pathways to advancement among reasons for the lack of representation at executive levels.

Latest data compiled by the Public Service Commission showed Asian individuals made up 17.4 percent of New Zealand's working-age population but only 3.3 percent of the top three tiers of public service leadership in 2024.

The commission said 1327 senior managers were employed in the public service on 30 June 2024, working in the top three tiers of leadership, with chief executives occupying tier one.

Of those working in the top three tiers of leadership, 78.5 percent identified as European, 17.1 percent as Māori, 5.3 percent as Pasifika and 3.3 percent as Asian.

While Pacific and Asian representation among senior managers has grown in the past five years, both groups remained underrepresented compared with the wider public service workforce and New Zealand's increasingly diverse population.

The Public Service Commission said European staff were overrepresented in higher-paid roles such as managers and policy analysts across the public service.

Meanwhile, Asian staff were represented in management but predominantly worked as information and communication technology professionals, technicians, contact center workers, inspectors and regulatory officers, the commission said.

The agency said the occupational patterns likely mirrored similar disparities across the broader labour market.

A spokesperson for the commission said the underrepresentation of Asian senior managers was partly linked to the age profile of the workforce.

"Growth in the numbers of Asian public servants overall is encouraging and moves us closer to reflecting the Asian population in New Zealand," the spokesperson said.

"However, Asian public servants are a relatively young cohort which may be contributing to low leadership representation at this time."

Some Asian professionals acknowledged that limited work experience could be a barrier to climbing the management ladder but said less visible obstacles also played a significant role.

Austin Yu, a Chinese IT professional with five years of experience in both the public and private sectors in New Zealand, said he applied for a variety of team leader and manager roles after working as a senior data analyst and business analyst for about three years, but was unsuccessful.

He said length of service was often viewed as a key measure of leadership competency in the New Zealand workplace, but the invisibility of informal "circles of people" had been a bigger barrier, excluding migrants from the leadership pipeline.

"The existence of these circles is very clear in senior leadership, especially in some local companies that are quite conservative," he said.

"Senior leaders are often more inclined to choose candidates who already have some kind of personal connection with them outside the workplace."

Such relationships, he said, often grow from shared hobbies, after-work drinks or even family ties.

"For [new migrants], it's very hard to enter that circle," he said. "It's something we can't see in the workplace."

Megan Jin, who has lived in New Zealand for 11 years and now works as a marketing manager in Auckland's hospitality sector, said she faced similar challenges.

Jin said senior leadership roles required strong soft skills such as people management and stakeholder engagement, which demanded advanced communication abilities and a sense of cultural fit - areas where new migrants, particularly those whose first language was not English, often struggled.

"The language barrier means you can't always express exactly what you want to say," she said. "There will always be something missing."

Jin said cultural differences between China and New Zealand also made it harder for Chinese migrants to compete for senior leadership roles.

"China's workplace culture is more collectivist," she said. "That makes management there relatively easier.

"In Western countries, it's totally different. Everyone has their own perspective, and people challenge their leaders no matter what position they hold. Management is actually more challenging here."

Jin said the higher executive team at her current company had no Asian representation, even though Asian staff were employed in many lower-level roles.

She said New Zealand workplaces should create clearer pathways for advancement.

Harry Mayer Singh, a third-generation Indian New Zealander, said both conscious and unconscious biases about who could act in leadership roles had made it difficult to secure senior roles.

"Bias isn't just about language," he said. "It's about who people imagine as a leader.

"Even if you grew up here, went to the same schools, supported the same teams, leadership still looks white. That line is drawn early and reinforced all the way through your career.

"I've been told I wasn't 'leadership material' or 'not a cultural fit'. I've even heard [recruiters say], 'Some will struggle to listen to someone like you' and it wasn't about my English. You have to prove yourself at every turn while, for others, it's assumed."

Singh, who has held leadership roles in both the public and private sectors, said the glass ceiling was most difficult to break at senior levels, particularly in positions that shaped the public face of an organization.

"I worked as a team leader at Tauranga City Council, and even at that level I was one of the highest-ranking people of color in the organization," he said.

"There were only a handful of people of color in roles above that, most of which were operational roles, not strategic.

"Within the public sector I've never made it past team leader level, even though I've acted in higher roles from time to time."

Singh said leadership needed to be more diverse to serve New Zealand's increasingly diverse communities, especially at the local government level.

"That lack of representation matters," he said. "When decision-makers don't reflect the communities they serve, minority perspectives aren't considered."

Maretha Smit, chief executive of Te Uru Tāngata Centre for Workplace Inclusion, said there was often a lag before gains were translated into leadership positions once recruitment increased the representation of a marginalized group.

However, she said, the structural dynamics of leadership recruitment were more challenging at the moment.

"Senior roles are often filled through a very narrow network and informal sponsorships," she said. "This can unintentionally exclude people who aren't already visible in those circles.

"Conscious and unconscious bias then continue to shape the perceptions of who's considered to be leadership material.

"Underrepresented groups would face additional barriers. That's a generalized statement, but most definitely that would also be what our Asian population would be facing."

Smit said the leadership pipeline should be transparent, with recruitment processes open, tracked and reported, rather than driven solely by networks.

She said such changes would help talent from all communities to secure senior roles.

Smit said leadership diversity was important in New Zealand workplaces, but representation at the executive table should not be pushed through for appearances' sake.

Representation should also be paired with inclusive cultures and accountability for change, she said.

"If organizations don't have a clear understanding of why diversity matters - to improve decision-making, reflect the communities they serve, and strengthen trust and performance - then adding faces around the table won't shift outcomes," she said.

"Adding faces around the table would add to the backlash."

Edwina Pio, emeritus professor of diversity, said there were no quick fixes or overnight solutions to the underrepresentation of Asian workers in senior roles, but challenging dominant stereotypes of Asians and recognizing them as highly skilled professionals with rich experience and knowledge was a positive step toward change in New Zealand's workforce.

Pio said employers should create pathways to help Asian workers move into leadership roles, including mentoring programs and intercultural competency training.

"Attending a Diwali function or a Chinese New Year celebration is not enough to say my organization is diverse," she said.

"We can also have beside mentoring and shadowing, where Asian employees work alongside senior leaders to see what they do and how they do it."

She said it was crucial to dismantle interlocking systems of stigma and move toward reinterpreting, rewriting and reshaping workplace behaviors to build more diverse leadership.

A Public Service Commission spokesperson said the agency was committed to attracting, retaining and developing the widest pool of capable talent at all levels of the public service, including management roles.