Born to
Soar

The humidity hit me the moment I stepped out of Kai Tak Airport. Hong Kong in 1996 was electric — still under British rule, months away from its historic handover back to China. The skyline was a jagged ambition of glass and steel. Double-decker buses roared past neon-lit signs. The harbor ferries cut through Victoria Harbour like clockwork. It was dense. Fast. Unapologetically driven.

I had accepted to be the Senior Auditor for HP Asia Pacific and had been sent to meet my regional team — smart, capable professionals from across multiple countries, all young and early in their careers. We were meeting for the first time as a complete group.

After the formal introductions and the usual small talk, one of my colleagues suggested we grab tea. It was casual, unguarded — the kind of conversation that happens when people lower their defenses just enough to reveal what they really think.

Halfway through our conversation, he leaned back, smiled, and said something that stopped time.

The words landed softly — but decisively. There was no malice in his voice. No insult intended. It was said with the same tone one might use to remark on the weather. Matter-of-fact. Observational. Almost curious.

I paused. In that instant, my mind raced faster than my response. Should I be offended? Insulted? Angry? Was this something I needed to correct sharply — to draw a boundary, to assert dignity?

Strangely, I felt none of that. Instead, I felt curiosity.

Not because the statement was correct — it wasn’t — but because it revealed something deeper and far more important than personal offense. It revealed perception. Narrative. Identity.

That single sentence did not wound me. It woke me up.

The Silence at the Top

By that point in my career, I had already worked across more than 50 countries — leading multinational teams, building markets, negotiating deals, and sitting in rooms where million-dollar decisions were made. I had worked with Americans, Europeans, Indians, Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, Middle Easterners, Latin Americans — leaders of every accent, temperament, and leadership style imaginable.

And yet, as I climbed higher, something became impossible to ignore.

At the entry and low levels, Filipinos were everywhere. Reliable. Hardworking. Trusted. The ones who stayed late, solved problems quietly, held teams together. But as the hierarchy narrowed — middle managers, director level, vice president, C-suite — the presence thinned dramatically.

By the time you reached the top, Filipinos had almost disappeared.

This wasn’t anecdotal anymore. It was a pattern. We were competent enough to be trusted with execution — but rarely with ultimate authority. Strong enough to carry organizations — but seldom asked to steer them. We kept hitting what many call the bamboo ceiling — that invisible barrier that stops Asian professionals from rising further, no matter how capable they are.

But here’s what bothered me most: other Asian cultures were breaking through. Indian CEOs led global tech giants. Chinese executives ran multinational conglomerates. Koreans and Japanese dominated entire industries.

Filipinos? We stalled — consistently — somewhere in the middle. Why?

Culture: The Hidden Curriculum of Leadership

Filipino culture is rich, communal, and deeply relational. We are raised to respect authority, avoid open confrontation, maintain harmony, and prioritize group cohesion over individual assertion.

We are taught — explicitly and implicitly — that humility is virtue, silence is respect, and obedience is safety.

These traits make us exceptional team players. They make us trusted deputies, stabilizers, and cultural bridges.

But leadership at the global level — especially in Western-dominated corporate environments — operates under a different unspoken curriculum.

In that environment, many Filipinos do not fail because they are incapable — but because they are culturally misaligned. Not wrong. Just misread.

Enter the AI Era

Just as these ideas were crystallizing, the world shifted again. Artificial Intelligence began reshaping how decisions are made, how work is distributed, and how leadership is defined. Algorithms now process what humans once decided. Machines execute with speed, scale, and precision.

And suddenly, the question was no longer just who is the smartest in the room.

It became: Who can lead humans in a world run by machines?

Here’s the irony — and the opportunity. The AI era does not reward command-and-control leadership. It punishes it. What machines cannot replicate are empathy, cultural intelligence, ethical judgment, and collective alignment.

From Crab to Geese

But potential alone is not enough. Cultural habits can uplift — or trap. I had seen too many Filipinos pulled back by fear of standing out, by peer pressure to stay small, by what we often call crab mentality — the instinct to pull others down rather than rise together.

Leadership, I realized, needed a different metaphor.

Not crabs clawing at one another on the ground — but geese, flying in formation. Taking turns leading. Creating lift for those behind them. Honking encouragement. Never leaving one another when one falls behind.

That metaphor became the soul of the Geese Project — a leadership philosophy rooted in collective elevation, shared responsibility, and cultural pride.