Some of the perspectives that shape our leadership are formed long before we ever hold a leadership title.

Often through the environments we navigate, the identities we carry, and the quiet moments where we learn what belonging feels like… and what it feels like when it is missing.

There was a time in my life when I never fully felt like I fit neatly into any one category.

As Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month comes to a close, I have found myself reflecting on how much of my leadership perspective was shaped long before I ever held a leadership title.

I spent several years of my childhood in Alice Springs, Australia, a small and remote town in the Northern Territory in the heart of the Red Centre desert region. In the mid-1970s, the population was just over 15,000 people. It was dusty, isolated, culturally layered, and worlds away from the suburban Texas life I would later experience.

One of my closest grade school friends there was Indigenous Australian. At the time, none of this felt unusual to me. It was simply my normal.

Then my family moved to Garland, Texas, outside Dallas, and for the first time I became deeply aware that other people saw me as different before they knew anything else about me.

As someone who is half Filipino, I suddenly became much more conscious of identity, culture, and the way people quietly categorize one another long before they truly know them.

Growing up in the South during that period, being Asian was not viewed negatively by most people around me, but it absolutely made you noticeable. I was still extremely social throughout middle school and high school, but there was always an awareness that I stood out in ways people recognized immediately.

I still remember my guidance counselor encouraging me to make sure I identified as Asian American on my college applications.

At the time, I did not think much about it.

Looking back now, I realize moments like that quietly reinforce to people that identity is often something others notice before personality, talent, character, or ambition.

Feeling Caught Between Worlds

Years later at Louisiana State University (LSU), those questions around identity became even more layered.

During fraternity rush, I remember approaching one fraternity house when the person working the door suddenly looked at me and loudly asked: “Are you Chinese?!”

I remember immediately feeling like I was not supposed to be there, so I quietly turned around and walked away before ever going inside.

It was one of the first moments I remember realizing how quickly people can reduce someone to a category before understanding anything about them.

Not long after that, I attended an event for the Filipino Students Association after being invited by the organization’s president. I remember him walking me around introducing me to people as: “Sean… he’s Filipino-American.”

There was a very noticeable emphasis on the “American.”

And honestly, I remember understanding exactly what he meant, even though neither of us acknowledged it directly.

At the time, I felt oddly caught between worlds.

I did not fully feel like I belonged with the Asian students because I was only half Filipino. But I also never fully felt like I belonged with the white students either because I was half Filipino.

And quietly, at the exact same time, I was also trying to understand another part of my identity that I kept largely hidden then: being gay.

Environment Shapes Participation

Looking back now, I realize I spent much of my younger life learning how to read environments before I ever fully entered them.

I learned to pay attention to reactions, tone, comfort levels, and who seemed naturally accepted versus who seemed like they had to earn their place in the room first.

When you spend years navigating multiple identities at once, you become very aware that different people can experience the exact same environment very differently.

At the time, I did not realize those experiences were shaping the way I would eventually lead.

But years later, through international leadership, global travel, and working across cultures throughout different parts of the world, I realized those earlier lessons had quietly become one of the greatest strengths I carried into leadership.

Because leadership is not only about strategy.

It is also about awareness.

Awareness of who feels included, who feels uncertain, who feels heard, who quietly withdraws, and who is still trying to determine whether it is safe to contribute.

I think one of the greatest misconceptions in leadership is the assumption that everyone enters the same room experiencing it similarly.

They do not.

Some people walk into a room already feeling they belong there. Others are still trying to determine whether they are welcome before they ever say a word.

Environment Shapes Participation

And those differences are not shaped by culture alone.

Sometimes they are shaped by socioeconomic background, religion, geography, family dynamics, sexuality, race or ethnicity, or experiences that taught someone early in life to evaluate environments carefully before fully stepping into them.

Some people grew up naturally feeling comfortable in professional spaces. Others learned early to first determine whether they truly belonged before speaking at all.

The longer I lead, the more I realize many people are carrying experiences that quietly shape how they enter rooms, build trust, interpret authority, respond to conflict, or decide whether it feels safe to contribute.

And leaders who fail to recognize that often create cultures where some people feel fully seen while others quietly learn to stay invisible.

Not invisible because they lack ideas or capability, but because somewhere along the way they learned that visibility carried risk.

So they observe first.

They measure reactions carefully.

They decide whether the environment feels safe before fully contributing.

I think many leaders dramatically underestimate how much environment shapes participation.

People contribute differently when they feel respected.

They challenge differently when they feel psychologically safe.

They engage differently when they believe they truly belong.

And often, the difference between a healthy culture and a struggling one is whether people feel they can fully show up without first calculating the personal cost of doing so.

In many ways, this is also why the work I do today as Chair of the Belonging and Growth Committee for the Radiology Business Management Association (RBMA) feels personally meaningful to me.

Because belonging is not simply about representation.

It is about whether people feel respected enough, safe enough, and understood enough to fully contribute without feeling they need to hide parts of who they are first.

Finding Brotherhood

College, however, also taught me something equally important: the power of finding people who simply accept you as you are.

Eventually, I found that in Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity.

To this day, I am incredibly proud to be a Phi Psi. What I found in Phi Kappa Psi was one of the first environments in my life where I did not feel the need to explain, qualify, or compartmentalize parts of who I was. It was simply a brotherhood that accepted me fully, and those friendships have remained deeply meaningful to me ever since.

Interestingly enough, decades later, that brotherhood resurfaced in one of the most unexpected places.

Earlier this year during my Vistage group’s retreat in Argentina, one of my closest friends in the group, Chad Bruce, MBA casually mentioned Phi Psi during a story over dinner.

I immediately asked, “Phi Kappa Psi?”

He looked surprised and said yes.

When I told him I was also a Phi Psi, he looked genuinely skeptical until we exchanged the fraternity handshake right there at the table. His entire expression changed as he realized that not only were we close friends through Vistage, we were fraternity brothers as well.

The next day, I actually called Phi Kappa Psi Executive Director Ronald Ransom to tell him the story because somehow it perfectly captured the lifelong connection and brotherhood that fraternity created.

And honestly, it is remarkable to me how much visibility Filipino culture has today compared to when I was growing up.

When I was younger, Filipino representation in mainstream American culture was relatively limited. Today, actors, comedians, creators, chefs, musicians, and social media personalities have brought Filipino culture much more visibly into the mainstream.

Now my cousin Erin Weiss Chupka, MBA sends me Instagram reels joking: “You know you’re Filipino when…”

And those moments genuinely make me smile because they reflect something much larger than humor.

They reflect visibility, comfort, pride, and belonging evolving over time.

What Leaders Should Pay Attention To

Looking back now, I realize many of the experiences that once made me feel caught between worlds ultimately gave me something incredibly valuable as a leader:

Awareness.

Awareness that people do not all experience the same environment the same way.

Some leaders learn strategy first and people second.

I think my life forced me to learn people first.

And the older I get, the more I realize leadership is often less about commanding the room and more about understanding how differently people may be experiencing it.

That awareness changes culture.

It changes trust.

And sometimes, it changes whether people feel they belong at all.

One of the most valuable things leaders can do is start paying closer attention to how environments feel to the people inside them.

Who speaks immediately?

Who waits?

Who naturally takes up space?

Who seems to carefully evaluate the room before contributing?

Those patterns often tell leaders far more about culture than performance metrics ever will.

Because when people feel genuinely seen, respected, and safe to contribute, organizations do not just become more inclusive.

They become stronger.

The longer I lead, the more I believe culture is not defined by mission statements or corporate language.

It is defined by whether people feel respected enough, safe enough, and valued enough to fully contribute without first calculating the cost of being themselves.

If these reflections resonate with your leadership journey, I invite you to subscribe and join me each week for The Hammer Principles.