# Behavioral Skills Examples: What They Look Like in Everyday Work Canonical URL: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/people-skills/behavioral-skills-examples/ Markdown URL: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/people-skills/behavioral-skills-examples.md Entity type: Article Last updated: 2026-07-07 Language: en Primary audience: professionals improving professional behaviors at work Owner: Headway Skills Contact: https://headwayskills.com/contact/ ## Short answer Behavioral skills examples sorted into three types: how you treat others, how you manage yourself and how reliably you deliver, plus how employers assess them. ## Key facts - Title: Behavioral Skills Examples: What They Look Like in Everyday Work - Category: People Skills - Primary skill: Professional Behaviors - Related skills: Communication, Teamwork - Primary keyword: behavioral skills examples - Source page: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/people-skills/behavioral-skills-examples/ ## What this page covers - Behavioral skills examples sorted into three types: how you treat others, how you manage yourself and how reliably you deliver, plus how employers assess them. - Practical guidance for behavioral skills examples - How this topic connects to Professional Behaviors ## Detailed explanation Good behavioral skills examples are actions a colleague could watch you do: listening fully before you reply, putting your main point first in an update, sharing what you know with your team, staying steady when a deadline moves, and delivering what you promised on the day you promised it. Each one describes how you work, not what you know. If the phrase has come up in a job ad, a review form or an interview invitation, it probably arrived without a word on what it looks like day to day. The picture gets much clearer once you sort these skills into three groups, because each group is noticed, and judged, in its own way. ## What makes a skill behavioral A behavioral skill is about the how of a job rather than the what. Two new hires can know exactly the same material and still get very different results, because one listens carefully, cooperates and keeps calm under pressure while the other doesn't. People often use the term interchangeably with interpersonal skills, and the territory is the same: how you deal with other people and how you manage yourself at work. The defining feature is that a behavioral skill can be seen. It is an action or a habit, not an intention or a feeling, which is why it pays to describe one concretely. "Responsive" is a label. "Answers emails within 24 hours" is a behavior someone could check. If you cannot picture a person doing it, you are still holding a label, not an example. That also makes these skills learnable in the ordinary way. A behavior is something you do, so you can practice it. A reserved person can learn to ask one clarifying question in every meeting without becoming outgoing, and nobody needs a new personality to start delivering work on the day they said they would. Much of the unease people feel about behavioral skills before a first job comes from not knowing which actions are expected. One of the young people we interviewed about starting work described her version of it like this: > What should you wear? What can you say, and what can't you say? Can you tell these kinds of jokes or not? And something as basic as bringing a notepad when you've just started, and taking notes whenever people talk. I had no idea about any of that, and that's what worried me: not knowing how I was supposed to act. Every item on her list is something you could watch a person do, and something a newcomer can learn by paying attention. The same holds for every example below. ## Three types of behavioral skills, with examples There is no single official list of behavioral skills, and the way they are grouped varies from one employer to the next. The most useful way to sort them is by who the behavior is aimed at: other people, or yourself. Add a third group for how reliably you get work done, and almost any example you meet will fit somewhere. ### Interpersonal behaviors These are the behaviors aimed at other people: how you listen, speak, cooperate and handle disagreement. Colleagues judge this group first-hand and fastest, because they experience it directly in every conversation, meeting and shared task. Examples you can practice: - Giving a colleague your full attention while they explain a problem, then summarizing it back before you respond. - Stating your main point first in an update or email, and the detail after. - Speaking up when you disagree, keeping it about the idea rather than the person, and backing the decision once the group has made it. - Passing on what you know without being asked, and naming the people who helped when a piece of work goes well. - Showing genuine interest in what colleagues work on, and thanking them in specific terms. The flip side counts just as much. Staying silent and contributing nothing, getting personal in an argument, acting as if you are above certain tasks, [working through gossip](/knowledge/professional-behaviors/how-to-stop-gossiping/) instead of saying things directly, and complaining by habit are behaviors too, and colleagues notice them just as quickly. ### Self-management behaviors These are the behaviors aimed at yourself: how you handle your own emotions, attention and reactions. In its Behavioural Competencies framework, the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction describes self-management as handling your emotions and staying focused under pressure, and ties it to self-regulation. Unlike interpersonal behaviors, self-management rarely shows in a single interaction. It shows in the effects: the person who keeps working methodically when a deadline is pulled forward, or who reads a critical comment twice before replying. Examples: - Pausing before you answer a message that annoyed you, and replying once you are calm. - Breaking an intimidating task into a small first step and starting it today instead of waiting to feel ready. - Asking for feedback after a presentation and changing one specific thing next time. - Noticing when a setback is outside your control and putting your energy into the part that isn't. ### Execution and reliability behaviors These are the behaviors that show how dependably you get work done: arriving on time, meeting deadlines and delivering work at the quality that was expected. Reliability is judged as a pattern rather than case by case, which is why a few missed commitments can outweigh a long run of kept ones. It is also the group you can start on earliest, because it needs no experience at all. Examples: - Confirming what was asked, by when, and what "done" looks like before you start. - Writing down the tasks agreed in a meeting so you deliver what was actually requested. - Telling the person waiting on your work early if a deadline is at risk, not on the day it is due. - Handling the small administrative tasks on time, without being chased. ## How employers assess behavioral skills Because behavioral skills are observable, employers assess them by looking at behavior rather than by guessing at personality. Two moments matter most early in a career. The first is [the performance review](/knowledge/working-with-your-manager/performance-review-preparation/). One formal way of rating behavior is a Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale. The Indiana Department of Correction's guide to the method shows how it works: each competency is defined in a sentence and paired with observable behavior at every rating level, so a score is tied to what the employee actually did rather than to the rater's general impression. If you are reviewed against descriptions like these, a fair question for your manager is what the next level would look like in practice. The answer is a concrete behavior you can start on. The second is the interview. [Behavioral interview questions](/knowledge/soft-skills-at-work/interpersonal-skills-interview/) ask you to describe a specific past situation in which you showed a skill, and answers are commonly structured as STAR: Situation, Task, Action, Result. The logic is straightforward. What you actually did in a real situation says more than any description of what you are like. So you need examples of your own behavior ready beforehand, and they can come from group projects, part-time jobs or volunteering as easily as from a previous job. Keep the weight of each answer on what you personally did, since that is the part that shows the behavior. ## How to tell which behavioral skills you already show Your own behavior is the hardest to judge. The International Institute for Restorative Practices, in a training handout, separates a personal side of competence (self-awareness and self-regulation) from a social side ([empathy](/knowledge/people-skills/empathetic-skills/) and handling relationships), and puts self-awareness first. The reason is practical: you cannot deliberately change a behavior you have not noticed yourself doing. So start with evidence rather than impressions. For each of the three groups, look for one specific moment from the last month or two: a time you summarized someone's request back to them, a time you kept your head when plans changed, a deadline you met without a reminder. Where you find a moment, you have an example you could describe in an interview. Where you can't, you have found a gap, and a gap in a behavior is a habit you have not built yet, not a flaw in who you are. Then add an outside view. Ask a colleague, tutor or manager about one specific behavior, framed toward what comes next, such as what one thing would make your updates clearer in the next meeting. A specific question gets a usable answer, while "How am I doing?" rarely does. Because your own habits are the ones you see least clearly, a [structured read on your skills](https://assessment.headwayskills.com/) makes a useful companion to that feedback, and every gap it surfaces is one you can work on. ## What makes these behaviors easier to build Look back across the three groups and a handful of underlying capabilities keeps turning up behind the examples. **Professional Behaviors** is where many of the plainest examples come from: treating everyone with the same respect regardless of their role, showing humility and real interest in other people's work, expressing appreciation and staying open to change. It also names the behaviors that cancel those out, so you know what to stop as well as what to start. None of it is an etiquette manual or a personality requirement. Each item is something you choose to do, and can be seen doing, from your first day. **Communication** turns "good communicator" into moves you can practice: giving people your full attention, listening actively, saying the main point first, being clear and direct, and speaking up rather than waiting to be asked. It also covers the harder moments, such as expressing disagreement or apologizing for a mistake, which is where the behavior shows most clearly. The point is not polish. It is choosing a specific move for a specific moment, like summarizing a request before you act on it. **Teamwork** supplies the behaviors teammates remember: doing what you committed to, meaning what you say, sharing knowledge freely and giving the team the credit. It does not mean going along with everyone. Disagreeing about the topic rather than the person, committing to a decision you argued against, and raising it respectfully when a teammate misses a commitment are all part of it, and they are what make you someone people trust to work with. The Job Skills Test measures these three directly, alongside the rest of a set of **twelve work skills**, which shows whether your strengths cluster in one area and leave another thin. You can [compare these three for yourself](https://assessment.headwayskills.com/) in one sitting, and a thin area simply marks the next habit to build, since every one of these skills can be learned. ## Starting from what you already do Parts of this may already describe how you work. If you have ever confirmed a deadline in a group chat and then delivered on it, or slept on a sharp reply to a teammate and sent a calmer one in the morning, you already hold one example from the reliability group and one from self-management. The groups where you found fewer examples work the same way. They fill in one habit at a time, and none of them asks you to become a different person. Pick the behaviors that matter for the work in front of you now. They tend to count for more as more of your results depend on other people, which is a good reason to start on them early, and each one can be built. Knowing which ones to start with is something you can settle today. ## See which behavioral skills to build first The only thing left is to measure your starting point. The Job Skills Test is a **free** self-assessment of your work skills, covering how you work with others, how you manage yourself and how you get work done. In about 7 minutes it shows where you stand across all twelve skills and which ones will make the biggest difference before your next review or interview. **[Get my skills profile](https://assessment.headwayskills.com/)** *Free, takes 7 minutes, results shown instantly.* ## Who this is for - Professionals building practical workplace skills - Readers looking for specific, usable work advice - Managers, educators, and coaches supporting career readiness ## Common questions ### What is this guide about? Behavioral skills examples sorted into three types: how you treat others, how you manage yourself and how reliably you deliver, plus how employers assess them. ### Which Headway skill does this connect to? This guide connects primarily to Professional Behaviors. It also relates to Communication, Teamwork. ### What is the recommended next step? Use the free Work Skills Test to reflect on which work skill to improve next. ## Related pages - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/people-skills.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/professional-behaviors.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/communication.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/teamwork.md - https://headwayskills.com/work-skills-test.md ## Citation guidance Use the canonical page when citing this content: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/people-skills/behavioral-skills-examples/ Preferred summary: "Behavioral skills examples sorted into three types: how you treat others, how you manage yourself and how reliably you deliver, plus how employers assess them." ## Change log - 2026-07-07: Content collection version published.