Building a Fearless Culture in Bosnia and Herzegovina
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, we are raising awareness of the importance of psychological safety – and the impact that fear can have on our colleagues’ ability to unlock their potential. As such, one of our local team’s key strategic People & Culture initiative in 2023 was an internally developed programme called ‘Fearless Culture’.
Fearless Culture workshops for our managers were held by all GEC-3 executives and People & Culture representatives, where together we discussed and mapped all the fears that are present in our working environment. Alongside our expectations from managers, peers and direct reports, this knowledge will form the base for our development plan for the year ahead.
We believe bold managers can make a difference, so we invested our time to create a clear understanding within our team that leadership is not about changing people – rather, it is about creating an environment in which people can be their best and reach their potential.
Fearless Culture workshops reminded us that a healthy work environment starts with the individual and is a two-way process. In a dynamic work context, it is difficult to single out moments in which we are reminded of the basics of work – individual contribution and the exchange of opinions. We became aware of certain brakes that slow us down and make working days more stressful than they should be, and the tools to deal with them. It was a special challenge, also from a personal growth perspective, as I had to hold a workshop for other managers from different organisational units, and considering that the topic of the importance of psychological safety is relatively new. It was especially empowering to hear that we all have similar fears and expectations from each other. Learning is a two-way street, and these kinds of workshops allow us to understand each other more, raising our awareness of the influence every manager in our Bank has."
Head of AML