Despite the economic achievements of East Asians (e.g., ethnic Chinese) in the US, they are disproportionately underrepresented in leadership. To elucidate this “Bamboo Ceiling,” we propose a novel explanation: East Asians are under-selected for leadership positions partially because they are stereotyped as lacking creativity, a prized leadership attribute in US culture. We first tested our proposition in two field studies: Across 33 class sections of 2,304 students in a US MBA program, East Asians were perceived by their classmates as less creative than other ethnicities (e.g., South Asian, White) at the beginning of the program—when the students had limited interactions and were likely influenced by creativity stereotypes. Lower perceived creativity mediated why East Asians were less likely than other ethnicities to be nominated (Study 1) and elected (Study 2) as class-section leaders by their classmates. These findings were replicated in two preregistered vignette experiments of non-Asian Americans (Studies 3 and 4, N=1,775): Compared to candidates of other ethnicities, East Asian candidates with an identical profile were viewed as less leader-like due to lower perceived creativity. Although East Asians are commonly stereotyped as competent, they are also stereotyped as lacking creativity, which can hinder their leadership emergence in US organizations.
