Being a descriptive self and curious self: Comparisons among Chinese immigrants, Chinese Canadians and Euro Canadians

In the book Clear Leadership, (Bushe, 2001) a set of skills that leads us to the processes of real organizational learning is introduced and described in detail. The Canadian Chinese are an increasing population in Canadian organizations, and research interest has been raised to determine whether Chinese employees have difficulties acquiring the behaviours and skills discussed in the book. In the following study, a comparative method is adopted and behaviours that reflect the Descriptive Self and Curious Self are compared among 55 Chinese immigrants, 42 Canadian born Chinese and 49 European descendents through their responses to four scenarios which demonstrate the standard Descriptive Self and the Curious Self. The results indicate that different cultural heritages create statistically significant differences regarding the extent to which people use clear leadership behaviours. The findings show that almost half of respondents, regardless of ethnic background, say they would use these behaviours. A larger proportion of Chinese, however, are less likely to use Descriptive Self and a Curious Self behaviours than the Canadian Europeans in public settings. In private settings, Canadian born Chinese are significantly more likely to use the behaviours than immigrants, but both groups lag behind Euro- Canadians. While the study supports the view that the Chinese culture creates barriers for Canadian Chinese clear leadership behaviour it also demonstrates that such barriers are not monolithic, and that the effects of culture on behaviour are more complex than accounted for in this study.