My First Step Toward Self-Authorship

I’m writing a book to offer a different perspective on Asian Americans and leadership. At its core, the book explores how self-authoring, a concept from Robert Kegan’s Adult Development Theory, is essential to effective and sustainable leadership. I connect this to the ways in which deeply rooted Asian cultural forces, such as filial piety, group-based thinking, and deference to hierarchical norms, often stand in the way of Asian Americans becoming self-authoring. The book also offers experience-based insights and practical suggestions for how we can move through, and ultimately beyond, these internalized constraints.

The theme was developed based on my own experience and coaching Aisan Americans. In coaching sessions, I often share my two biggest turning points in my life - leaving Samsung/ Korea to move to the US in my early 30s and becoming an executive coach, a long but most meaningful shift out of a failure. I do believe that both are related to my effort toward self-authoring and discovering who I really want to be.

I’d like to share more about the first transition. I started thinking of leaving Samsung Electronics, my employer since my college graduation, and finding a new career opportunity in the US only three or four months into the new position after coming back from my MBA in Boston. I was 33 years old and working as a manager, which means 3rd from the bottom out of about 10 level corporate hierarchy. Before coming back from Boston, I thought about staying in the US, breaking the sponsorship obligation, but I didn’t put serious effort into it. When I returned and was sent to a different unit, a cost accounting group in the semiconductor memory chip business, I took it as a new beginning. I was nervous but also a little bit excited for a new start. I reunited with a familiar culture and people. 

Walking on a Mountain Path in Spring” (春山行旅圖) Ma Yuan (馬遠, c. 1160–1225)

Our group worked extremely long hours, close to 90-100 hours per week. It was not just for one or two weeks but no sign of change. I still am amazed how people can endure these long hours for a very long period of time like years. I left home at 6:15 in the morning and came home close to 10PM, sometimes later, every day other than Fridays. It was understood that no one left before their boss. The senior managers didn’t go home in part because they had something to do but more because they were waiting for juniors to come to them with a draft or analysis. By not leaving work, they created an environment for others to work long hours. The hours after dinner were never productive to me. I remember many nights when I stayed until midnight just to justify taking a taxi instead of taking the latest company shuttle bus at 11:15PM. I felt that it was a system that rewarded endurance and loyalty more than others. 

The real difficulty was that I felt I (or anybody for that matter) couldn’t dare to change the way of working even though something was not right. Our team produced and controlled cost data for semiconductor products, critical information for many teams. I found the culture of holding those data for power moves uninspiring. We treated the information we produce each month as holy grail and top secret. I was thinking what if we made it open to entire employees so that they can leverage it for new creation and innovation. 

Another important mismatch was that the work required deep and repetitive monthly processes, and attention to details. I didn’t feel like I was using my talents. At the time, I only felt that I might not be good at this. Later, I realized that I’m at my best when I’m building something new, creating possibilities, generating ideas, and seeing connections others might miss. I like thinking forward, imagining and constructing. The job required less of what I could do best. 

I didn’t recognize how uniform we were as a group at Samsung until attending my MBA program. But after my experience in the US, the lack of diversity in people (only Koreans, almost all males, only from a limited number of universities) and therefore the range of opinions. I felt most of our group discussion was tiring, strict and uninspiring. I think that the biggest impact of thought uniformity in our group came from the deference to hierarchical norms. “What do you think our CEO (VP, or director)’s intention was when he asked us this question?” was asked and discussed much more than trying to find our own solutions and directions. It was like doing a mind game with circular questioning. Sharing our real voices and opposing views were rare. Going against someone’s boss, especially in a group setting, was very difficult, if not, almost impossible. If that happened in any fashion, people felt very nervous. “This must have infuriated the boss.” Over time, I see myself following those norms and feel sad moving backward.  

I also wanted to show my father and others that I can find my own path. My father had spent his  entire career in the same company, rising through hard work, resilience, and loyalty. I was proud of him. His presence and advice was helpful in many ways in my early Samsung days. Some of my bosses mentioned him to me to encourage me and be friendly with me. Many of my friends and co-workers would have expected me to work at Samsung for a long time. But I also felt a weight I couldn’t quite name: the sense that I was still living inside someone else’s story. 

So, only three months into the new job, I started reaching out to friends in the US. I naively set my goal as getting a job in the US to get out of Korean corporate culture. Somehow I hadn’t thought about switching companies in Korea. My action started small. I started reaching out to friends in the US for networking. I talked with a mentor about his work and how we could help each other. The mentor, who later became my boss, gave me some work. He introduced me to other industry people. I began researching the solar power industry which was in its infancy but growing fast. I worked at Samsung for most of my day and night and worked on my secret career change effort during my small spare time. I didn’t know if I’d be able to find a job, or how long it might take. But I didn’t look back. And I had fun working on this side job. I helped arrange visits and interviews with Korean companies for my mentor. I also attended a large solar power conference in Germany using my vacation. Overall it took about 9 months to leave my job at Samsung to start working full time for the solar power consulting firm and took another year for all of my family to move to Boston.   

Looking back I really appreciate the big pain I felt during that last year at Samsung. If the struggle and pain were bearable, I might not have taken a step forward for a change. In coaching sessions, I talk about the importance of failure and using the pain for growth. Often pain from failure, loss, or big mistakes make us change and move forward. 

Another important piece that helped my transition was my time in Boston, being with really diverse people during my MBA. It helped me normalize my situation as something not best for me. I learned that there is something out there other than life at Samsung. This normalization and clarity was crucial as I didn’t see it clearly during my prior time at Samsung. 

The perspective I took in Boston also gave me an engine to take a risk. Practically, seeing my friends going through the pivoting of their jobs and industries, and in some cases, countries helped me indirectly experience what it would be like to go through the change. My dear cohort team members, other than me and one more who went back to sponsoring companies, shifted their jobs from pharmaceutical company to an entertainment company, from a tech startup to a global strategy consultancy, from a non-profit to a global financial institution, and from economic research to a sustainability role at Nike. You rarely see these kinds of shifts in Korea. But I knew it was possible. Also, the feeling that I belong to this group of people who take risks increased my confidence and pushed me to set a high bar.  

With all this in mind, I’m not sure I would call this shift in my early 30s an act of self-authorship. It felt more like I was trying to get out of something that had stopped making sense, a situation I saw no future for me. More like an exodus than proactive searching. But in another sense, it totally feels like a self-authorship to me. Those nine months were a big secret life for me, not even shared with my wife in the beginning. If you know me well, you’d know how difficult it was for me as I share almost anything with close contacts. It didn’t have to be that way. I wished I was able to share my pain and brainstorm options with others. But, I couldn’t. I was afraid of others’ judgment. I imagined hearing “You are weak. You know it takes hard work and endurance to be successful.”, “You are looking for something that is not real.”, “I know what’s best for you.” Also, I was afraid I’d lose my drive for change once I shared it with others. I guess, back then, I assumed most people around me in Korea would not support me. When I actually shared that I decided to leave Samsung and move to a small consulting firm in the US, many of my friends cheered me on. Some were puzzled. My parents were surprised, concerned, and disappointed.