Young Women in Armenia on Leadership

by Andini Makosinski

Hi, my name is Andini, and I am so honored to be part of the Women Emerging expedition. I’m a 24 year old inventor, writer, speaker and multi potential who is still figuring out what exactly it is that I want to do in life.

At the end of the beginning of this past August, I had the privilege to be invited to speak at FemInno, a STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) conference - aimed specifically at young women - in Yerevan, Armenia. The culture for girls interested in STEAM needs radical change - most parents in Armenia don’t encourage their girls to go study the sciences, most of the girls I talked to told me that their parents just wanted them to settle down and find a good husband. Events like FemInno are a great way to connect these girls together, and also local tech companies and sponsors came by to chat with the girls on how they could pursue these fields and offer potential positions. The event was attended mostly by young girls from different parts of Armenia, although 50% or so of the speakers did come from out of the country, myself included. I am actually a quarter Armenian, but had never really been exposed to Armenian culture, food, or people, so I was quite excited for the trip, and it certainly did not disappoint.

 I had never been to this part of Europe before, and I was quite curious to learn more about how these girls - I met mostly Gen Z’ers/Millennials - saw the world. I held an hour-long workshop with them, talking about my own experiences as a young woman, and then exploring with them what Leadership meant to them. I divided the girls up into groups of 4 or 5, gave them some time to brainstorm and then record on a poster what they thought of when imagining leadership and/or a great leader. I also believe that leadership can exist both on a bigger level (reaching lots of other people), and also on a personal level, on how you lead yourself through life’s circumstances. How can you consistently set an example and standard for oneself, and subsequently, others?

During our expedition of trying to find an approach and definition to leadership that resonates with women, our group has raised concerns early on that we want to be as inclusive as possible. Everyone has their own unique set of experiences, and I felt it important to gather these Armenian girls' thoughts on leadership, because I knew their life experiences were so very different from my own. Most of them had not had the opportunity to travel out of Armenia yet, usually a trip to nearby Georgia was more standard, and a holiday trip to America was not something many girls had embarked on. A lot of the girls who had just finished high school had recently lost fellow classmates who had gone on to fight the ongoing war between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Armenia has passed through different hands of leadership/occupancy for centuries, most recently emerging out of being a constituent republic of the USSR in 1991. I came from Canada, a relatively “new” country, and while we have our own traumas in our country’s history and colonisers, I simply did not have the same historical weight to carry as these girls and their families.

I asked each of the girls groups to give a short presentation at the end, reporting back their findings on what they thought needed to be included when it came to effective leadership. I took some photos and videos, but I have compiled the most noted down attributes below.

The main points that each group raised (without discussing what they were recording to the other groups) were empathy and caring, emotional intelligence and self awareness, tolerant and open minded and big picture thinking while still being detail oriented. The idea of empathy being a crucial skill and attribute for leadership to blossom has been something that our own expedition with Julia has raised multiple times, and hearing the Armenian girls also discuss this felt like we were headed in the right direction.

Other points included: friend, coach, good listener, lifting others up, raising new leaders, sharing knowledge, making difficult decisions, ability to motivate and inspire, trustworthy, taking responsibility, fostering friendly environment, listens to all opinions and then acts decisively, strong communication skills, open to innovation and being a heart of motivation.

It was a pleasure to listen to what these young girls had to say, and I hope their findings will help guide us further on our leadership expedition.