At GSBC’s 75th Annual School Session, hundreds of community bankers came to Boulder ready to push themselves. They dug deeper into the business of banking, challenged the way they think and lead and learned alongside peers facing many of the same pressures.
This year’s Level Up theme was built on the idea that everyone has a next level. It invited students to get clear about their goals during the two-week session, beginning in pre-session meetings where they identified what they wanted to strengthen. Once on campus, they reflected on how those goals began to take shape.
The outcome was a remarkable look at the ownership our students take over their own development—and a reminder that the impact of the GSBC experience doesn’t end when they leave Boulder.
Pre-Session: The Power of Intention
GSBC students arrived on campus with different ideas about where they needed to grow. At the beginning of week one, they shared goals that ranged from leading with more confidence and thinking more strategically to understanding the bank beyond their own areas of expertise, strengthening technical knowledge and preparing for greater responsibility.
One younger banker, already entrusted with significant responsibility, wanted greater confidence in her expertise and a stronger voice in important conversations at her bank. Another was looking toward future leadership opportunities, but advancement wasn’t the goal. Instead, the student wanted to build leadership and technical knowledge to contribute more meaningfully across the bank.
Putting Growth into Practice
As hours in the classroom and building new relationships compounded, those goals took shape in both technical and personal ways for our students.
Students began describing level-up moments in terms of deeper connection to critical areas of the bank. For some, that meant developing a better understanding of ALM and how decisions in one area affect the entire institution—a broader perspective third-year students put to the test in BankRole as they moved beyond their individual areas of expertise to think strategically about operating an entire bank.
Other lessons came from specific classroom experiences, including a coaching exercise that required participants to stay in “questioning mode” instead of offering advice or solving the problem. For that student, the level-up opportunity was practicing how to ask better questions and listen more fully—a simple exercise that challenged the way they were accustomed to helping others.
Taking It Home
By the end of the Session, students were thinking less about where they wanted to grow and more about what they planned to do about it. They wrote about listening more carefully, digging deeper into the bank, communicating differently, approaching decisions from a broader perspective and being more intentional in how they lead.
“One commitment I am making when I return is to be intentional about developing others,” one student wrote.
That is where the GSBC experience matters most. What happens in Boulder travels home into decisions, difficult conversations and challenges that ask bankers to apply what they’ve learned and see beyond what they already know.
Growth That Continues Beyond Boulder
For one inspired third-year student, graduation brought that idea into focus. Reflecting on the relationships, resources and experiences gained through GSBC, the student wrote,
“As I close this chapter, I know it’s only because I get to write the next.”
Year after year, GSBC students remind us why the future of community banking is in good hands. They take seriously the opportunity to grow as leaders, challenge themselves and one another, and return home ready to strengthen the banks and communities counting on them.
Level Up: Your Turn
What began as a question for students at the start of the session became something more by the time they left Boulder: a reminder that growth is both personal and shared.
Level Up gave this year’s students a tangible way to see their development unfolding at GSBC—and it offers the same invitation to community bankers everywhere. To continue propelling the industry forward, leaders at every level should ask themselves the same question: ‘What would it look like for me to level up?’