The Cost of Leadership: 13th Regional HR Conference

After a difficult decision, the meeting ends, but the responsibility stays. The leader keeps thinking: how will people take the change, who will it hurt, will the result justify the effort invested? These are questions that HR professionals and managers often face in their work, but they don't always get a chance to discuss them openly.

On September 25, more than 300 participants from 7 countries gathered at the Yerevan Railway Station to talk about exactly these questions. The theme of this year's 13th Annual Regional HR Conference was "The Cost of Leadership." The Armenian HR Association and Cascade People & Business invited participants to discuss what leadership demands of a person and how their decisions affect others.

In successful leadership stories, we usually see the final result: a growing business, a strong team, a change carried through. We hear much less about the doubts, mistakes, losses and difficult conversations along the way. Giving those experiences a place was also the goal of the conference.

Arpi Karapetyan, founder and president of the Armenian HR Association and founder and CEO of Cascade People & Business, said in her opening speech:

"We usually see and appreciate the visible result of leadership, but we rarely talk about the price paid for that result. This conference focuses on the important things that stay 'out of the frame': the effort, the work, the losses and the failures that stand behind every success."

Over the course of the day, 4 individual talks and 6 panel discussions brought together more than 30 professional perspectives. Representatives of business, the HR field and the public sector approached the same theme from different experiences, from attracting and developing people to digital transformation, education and the labor market.

The discussions on people and talent returned to a question that is always relevant for organizations: how to attract and develop the specialists a business needs. This topic also ties directly to the leader's responsibility: developing people takes time, consistent work and decisions whose results don't always show quickly.

The conversations on education and the labor market widened the scope. Building the skills needed for work is not only the task of an educational institution or only of the employer. Business expectations, educational opportunities, public policy and the choices of a person entering the labor market all meet here. Understanding these links matters for HR professionals too, who deal with their consequences every day.

The topic of digital and organizational transformation also brought the discussion back to people. Introducing a new technology is only one part of the decision; alongside it, working habits, roles and expectations change. How do you lead that process, keep trust and take responsibility for the consequences? These questions connected with the other key themes of the day: resilience, uncertainty and difficult decisions.

For an HR professional, these conversations have a great deal of practical value. They often help prepare the decision, help the leader present it to the team and handle people's reactions, all at once. That is why talking about the cost of leadership is also an occasion to think about one's own professional role: what needs to be considered before the decision, and what responsibility remains after it is carried out?

The Yerevan Railway Station gave this year's meeting a distinctive setting. A place associated with the road, movement and the choice of direction fit the discussions. In a leader's work, too, the moment keeps coming when you have to choose: keep going the same way or change direction, accepting the cost of that choice as well.

For 13 years now, the conference organized by the Armenian HR Association and Cascade People & Business has created a chance to meet for the HR community of Armenia and the region, business leaders and international experts. This year, HR Drone was the conference's main media partner, supporting the spread of professional dialogue.

The main supporting partners of the conference were GIZ Armenia and CIPE, and the long-term partner was AIHR (Academy to Innovate HR). The event was also supported by Newmag, DARMAN, Impact Hub Yerevan, Skill.am, Impulse Media, Ucom, Spark.work and Wilco Wealth Management.

The official program closed with a musical performance by the Play2 Youth Guitar Festival. The conversations then continued in a more relaxed setting, around new acquaintances, sharing experience and new professional connections.

The main question of the day remained open after the conference too: when we assess the result of a leader's work, do we also see the price that the leader and their people paid for it?