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Senior leaders are asking people leaders to do some of the hardest work in the organization right now. They need them to strengthen accountability, rebuild trust, coach performance, create belonging, and help teams work together with more consistency. Those expectations are real, and leaders need practical, usable tools that help them bring culture to life in the moments where work actually happens.
Without practical language for what the culture looks like in action, even committed people are left to interpret expectations on their own. Employees may understand the company’s values, believe in the mission, and want to do great work, but if the way to be successful is mostly implied, people leaders are left to interpret the culture one conversation at a time while employees discover expectations through trial and error.
This is where clearly defined “behaviors” become a powerful leadership tool. They translate culture from aspiration into observable action. They give leaders shared language for recognition, coaching, and accountability. They help employees understand not only what the company values, but how those values show up in the daily work of serving clients, supporting teammates, solving problems, and following through.
At Pathbuilders, we learned this discipline through David Friedman’s work on high-performance cultures. Friedman teaches that culture is not what people believe; it is what people do. That idea resonated with us because we know leaders. We know how quickly they can get stuck when expectations are clear at the top but less clear in the day-to-day. And we know that the right tool helps leaders lead by making culture easier to reinforce and carry.
In our company, we have identified the 27 behaviors that define success here — observable, teachable actions that have become one of our most useful tools for keeping our culture clear, consistent, and alive.
Our first recorded behavior did not come from a strategic planning session. It emerged from one of the simplest actions we take at a live event.
At Pathbuilders, when we host live programs, we often ask tables to report out on their discussions. We run microphones around the room so everyone can hear the person speaking. It is a practical choice, but it is also part of the experience we want to create. Even when someone waves us off or insists they can speak loudly enough, we know the people across the room appreciate being able to hear every contribution.
Years ago, during one of those events, I noticed an employee doing something that seemed small at first. When people raised their hands from a distance, she did not move toward them. If reaching them required moving quickly across the room, she simply stayed where she was. The more important moment happened when I looked at the rest of our team. They had risen from their seats at the back of the room, trying to get her attention. They saw the raised hand. They saw the missed opportunity. They knew someone should be moving.
That was the moment I realized we had a behavior to name. It was about more than running a microphone. It was about energy, ownership, responsiveness, and a willingness to do what the moment required. It was about how we show up when the experience depends on us.
That behavior became: We hustle.
I realize that “hustle” can carry baggage today. We do not mean hustle culture. We do not mean glorifying overwork or confusing exhaustion with commitment. For us, hustle means we move with purpose. We jump in. We see something that needs doing and do it — for each other, for our clients, and because we can. It is less about speed for speed’s sake and more about ownership in motion.
Most organizations have values, and many of them are thoughtful, well-intended, and deeply held. Integrity matters. Teamwork matters. Client focus matters. Excellence matters. But values alone do not always tell people what to do.
They may name what matters, but they often stop short of translating those ideals into daily action. They do not always answer the practical questions employees face in the flow of work: What does “client focus” mean when a detail is easy to miss? What does “teamwork” mean when a teammate is overloaded? What does “excellence” mean when a handoff could be cleaner, a process could be followed more carefully, or a concern needs to be raised before it becomes a problem?
That is where behaviors become powerful. They make values usable. They give language to actions people can see, recognize, practice, and coach. At Pathbuilders, our behaviors are grouped under what we call our values houses, and they help us describe what it means to work the way we work. We proactively help. We create client experiences with personal touch. We embrace processes because we know that processes create the magic. We pay attention. We speak up. We reflect the “product” that we sell, holding ourselves to the same growth standard we help create in others.
Each one gives language to something that might otherwise remain implied, and implied expectations are a risky way to build a culture.
In a prior blog, I described relationship-fabric as the fabric of trusting relationships that makes great work possible. Defined behaviors strengthen that fabric because they give leaders and teams a shared standard to work from. When expectations are implied, feedback can feel personal or subjective, even when the concern is valid. When expectations are named, the conversation shifts from individual preference to organizational alignment.
A leader saying, “I did not like how that was handled,” may be trying to address something important, but the employee has to interpret what standard was missed. A leader saying, “Here is the behavior we expect, and here is where I saw a gap,” connects the conversation to language the whole organization already understands. A named behavior gives judgment and courage a clearer foundation.
At Pathbuilders, this is the kind of gap we pay close attention to because we work every day with leaders who are trying to translate broad expectations into daily action. The right tool helps leaders lead by making the work more concrete, more consistent, and more fair.
One lesson we took from Friedman’s work is the importance of repetition. We keep the behaviors in conversation by highlighting one each week, talking about what it looks like in practice, and celebrating people who have demonstrated it in action. They have names, definitions, and examples, but the living examples matter too. We post sticky notes where the team can see real moments of the behaviors in action because those examples help people understand what is expected and what is valued.
That clarity is part of belonging. People are more likely to feel rooted in a culture when they understand what is valued, how success is recognized, and how their own energy and standards fit with the organization’s. The people who thrive here are energized by this way of working. That does not mean others lack talent, character, or commitment. Often, it means the culture is asking them to work in ways that are not aligned with what they value.
When a culture’s way of working is unclear, people have to guess. When it is clear, people can decide whether they see themselves in it. People will work incredibly hard in a culture that supports what they value. They will run through walls when the work, the people, and the standards feel meaningful to them. But when the culture asks them to operate in ways that feel fundamentally misaligned, even the most dedicated people can burn out.
For senior leaders, the next step is not another values exercise. It is translating what you already believe into behaviors people can recognize, practice, and reinforce. The most useful starting point is often your own high performers: what do they do consistently that makes them successful in your organization? How do they communicate, prepare, support teammates, recover when something goes wrong, and create trust with clients or customers?
Those answers often reveal the behaviors already shaping your culture. The leadership work is to name them clearly, define them well, provide examples, and reinforce them often enough that they become shared language. This clarity also helps senior leaders spot the talent they want to advance. When the behaviors are named, leaders can see more quickly who is already carrying the culture forward — not only who delivers results, but who delivers them in a way that strengthens the organization.
Naming behaviors once, putting them in a handbook, or mentioning them during onboarding will not create that kind of shared language. Senior leaders have to keep them in conversation until they become part of how people explain decisions, recognize contributions, and redirect work that is drifting.
This is the work we know well: equipping people leaders with practical tools that help them drive results through culture, not around it. Behaviors are one of those tools. They give leaders a clearer way to practice judgment, trust, and courageous leadership in service of stronger teams, better execution, and a healthier organization.
In a workplace increasingly shaped by technology, dashboards, automation, and efficiency tools, it may feel almost old-fashioned to talk about paying attention, being prepared, speaking up, making clean handoffs, following processes, and creating client experiences with personal touch. Yet these innately human behaviors are often where trust, standards, client experience, and performance are built — at every level of the organization.
They are how clients feel cared for. They are how teammates know they can count on one another. They are how people decide whether they belong.
Values matter. But values become powerful when people can see them, practice them, and carry them into the work. Great cultures do more than describe what a company believes. They shape the teams, standards, and daily choices that help organizations perform, adapt, and thrive.
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Originally published in the C-Suite Dialogue Blog on May 13, 2026.
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