Leadership Behaviors Big Companies Demand: Integrity First, Frugality Last

The email from HR has a link to the company’s principles and a note to read them before Monday. The leadership behaviors large companies write down come in a predictable order. In our count of 19 published lists, integrity appears in 16, the customer and inclusion in 14 each. Frugality appears in only 5, and speed in 8.

Our newsroom read the leadership principles, values and behaviors that 19 large companies publish on their own websites, from Amazon’s 16 Leadership Principles to Microsoft’s three corporate values. We coded each list against ten themes and counted. Every page is linked in the table below, and every one was checked on 31 October 2026.

What We Found

Of the 19 large companies whose published principles we checked, 16 name integrity as a leadership behavior, while only 5 name frugality and 8 name speed, two traits Amazon names outright.

Amazon and JPMorgan Chase are the only companies in the sample whose lists touch all ten of our themes. Four of the 19 touch only three. The median list has seven items, and the shortest, at Microsoft and IBM, have three each.

Length and reach barely track each other. Johnson & Johnson’s Credo sets out four responsibilities and covers seven themes. Google names ten principles and covers four.

So read the frequency. A behavior that 16 companies name is the baseline every large employer expects of its managers. A behavior that only 5 name is a choice, and it tells you what that company’s leaders will be pushed on hardest.

What Are Leadership Behaviors?

Leadership behaviors are the actions a company expects to see from the people who run its teams, such as how they treat customers, take responsibility, make decisions, give feedback and develop staff. Companies publish them as leadership principles, values or growth behaviors. A useful one describes something a colleague could watch you do on an ordinary Tuesday.

That last test separates a behavior from a trait. “Visionary” is a trait. “Leaders start with the customer and work backwards”, from Amazon’s Leadership Principles, is a behavior, because you can see whether someone did it. Our guide to leadership vs management draws the line between leading people and running a process, and these lists sit on the leading side.

Managers carry most of the weight. Gallup estimates that managers account for at least 70% of the variance in employee engagement scores across business units. It also reports that companies fail to choose the candidate with the right talent for the job 82% of the time.

A published list is the company’s own answer to what that talent looks like. That makes it worth reading closely before you are judged against it.

The 19 Companies and the Themes They Name

Here is the full sample. “Items” is the number of principles, values or behaviors the page names, and the themes column is our coding against the ten themes. Each company name links to the page we read.

Company	Items	Themes we coded	Count
Amazon	16	Customer, ownership, speed, integrity, candor, developing people, learning, frugality, inclusion, results	10
JPMorgan Chase	20	Customer, ownership, speed, integrity, candor, developing people, learning, frugality, inclusion, results	10
Intel	7	Customer, ownership, speed, integrity, candor, developing people, learning, inclusion, results	9
Procter & Gamble	13	Customer, ownership, integrity, candor, developing people, learning, inclusion, results	8
McKinsey & Company	18	Customer, integrity, candor, developing people, learning, frugality, inclusion, results	8
Johnson & Johnson	4	Customer, integrity, candor, developing people, frugality, inclusion, results	7
Mastercard	12	Ownership, speed, integrity, candor, developing people, learning, inclusion	7
BlackRock	5	Customer, ownership, integrity, learning, inclusion, results	6
Goldman Sachs	4	Customer, ownership, integrity, developing people, learning, results	6
Toyota	10	Customer, integrity, developing people, learning, frugality, inclusion	6
Netflix	8	Speed, candor, developing people, learning, inclusion	5
Novartis	9	Customer, ownership, integrity, developing people, learning	5
Atlassian	5	Customer, ownership, speed, candor	4
Patagonia	5	Integrity, learning, inclusion, results	4
Google	10	Customer, speed, integrity, results	4
Microsoft	3	Ownership, integrity, inclusion	3
Salesforce	5	Customer, integrity, inclusion	3
IBM	3	Customer, ownership, integrity	3
The Coca-Cola Company	4	Speed, learning, inclusion	3

Added up by theme, the order is integrity 16, customer and inclusion 14 each, learning 13, ownership and developing people 11 each, results 10, candor 9, speed 8 and frugality 5. The sample size for every one of those counts is 19.

Which Leadership Behaviors Do Companies Name Most?

Integrity, the customer and inclusion. Of the 19 companies we checked, 16 name integrity, ethics, honesty or trust, 14 name the customer or client, and 14 name inclusion, respect or diversity. Learning comes fourth, named by 13. These are the leadership behaviors almost every large employer expects, which makes them the floor of the job.

The integrity wording varies more than the idea. Microsoft says “We are honest, ethical, and trustworthy.” JPMorgan Chase says “We will not compromise our integrity.” Google puts it as “You can make money without doing evil.” Salesforce calls trust its number one value.

Three companies leave integrity out of their named items and descriptions: Netflix, Atlassian and Coca-Cola. Netflix’s wider culture page still says that “excellence and honesty go hand in hand.” Those companies spend their named items elsewhere, on candor at Netflix and on openness at Atlassian. BlackRock gets there inside a description, saying its fiduciary duty “reflects our integrity.”

The customer is nearly as universal. Amazon starts its list with Customer Obsession. Google’s first line is “Focus on the user and all else will follow.” Atlassian says “Customers are our lifeblood.” BlackRock frames it as a legal duty: “We are a fiduciary to our clients.” The five lists without a customer theme are Netflix, Microsoft, Patagonia, Coca-Cola and Mastercard.

Inclusion runs from P&G’s “We value differences” to Patagonia’s “Be just, equitable and antiracist as a company and in our community.” Intel lists Inclusion as one of seven values and adds “We value and embrace differences.”

For a new manager, the top three are the baseline. They are where your record is checked first, and where a single lapse costs the most.

Why Do So Few Companies Name Speed and Frugality?

Our reading is that both are trade-offs, and few companies want a trade-off in writing. Frugality is the rarest theme in our sample, named by only 5 of the 19 lists. Speed is next to last at 8, and at three of those companies it appears only inside a description.

Five name speed outright: Amazon’s Bias for Action, JPMorgan Chase’s “skill and urgency”, Google’s “Fast is better than slow”, Mastercard’s “Move fast” and Coca-Cola’s “agile”. Intel writes “execute flawlessly with urgency”, Atlassian says “Passion and urgency infuse everything we do” and Netflix asks for tough decisions “without agonizing or long delay.”

Amazon’s version is the most explicit. “Speed matters in business. Many decisions and actions are reversible and do not need extensive study.” That gives a manager permission to act before every fact is in, and permission to be wrong on calls that can be undone. The same list also asks leaders to Insist on the Highest Standards, so they are expected to hold both at once.

Telling the two kinds of decision apart is the skill. Our guide to decision making in business covers how to sort the reversible calls from the ones that deserve the extensive study.

Frugality has its own five. Amazon says “Accomplish more with less.” McKinsey commits to “manage client and firm resources cost-effectively.” Johnson & Johnson’s Credo says “We must constantly strive to provide value, reduce our costs and maintain reasonable prices.” Toyota says it will “eliminate waste and manage our resources carefully.” JPMorgan Chase asks for “the best, most efficient systems and operations.”

If your company names either one, treat it as an instruction. Few employers put it in writing, so the ones that do expect to see it.

Both also carry a cost the lists leave out. A team run fast and lean for a year will show the strain, and our guide to stress leave from work covers what happens when someone on it reaches the limit.

What Does Candor Look Like in Writing?

Candor means telling people the truth about their work and disagreeing out loud. Nine of the 19 lists name it. Netflix asks staff to “willingly receive and give feedback.” P&G says “We are honest with people about their performance.” McKinsey writes in an obligation to “engage and dissent.”

Amazon pairs the argument with the follow-through. Its principle “Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit” says leaders should challenge decisions they disagree with, and adds “Once a decision is determined, they commit wholly.”

The other versions are plainer. Johnson & Johnson’s Credo says “Employees must feel free to make suggestions and complaints.” Atlassian names a value “Open company, no bullshit.” JPMorgan Chase writes “We face facts” and “We communicate honestly, clearly and consistently.”

Candor is hardest when you are new to the role and unsure your judgment counts yet. A principle like Amazon’s “Are Right, A Lot” can read like a standard nobody meets in year one. Our piece on how to overcome imposter syndrome is written for that stage.

Ownership and the Owner’s Stake

Eleven of the 19 lists name ownership. JPMorgan Chase writes “We act and think like owners and partners.” BlackRock says “We take emotional ownership.” Mastercard lists “Own the outcome” as a behavior. Microsoft’s Accountability reads “We accept full responsibility for our decisions, actions, and results.”

P&G ties the idea to money. One of its principles is titled “The Interests of the Company and the Individual Are Inseparable”, and it says “We encourage stock ownership and ownership behavior.” For most employees the nearest thing to an owner’s stake is the retirement plan, and our guide to the 401k match explains how the employer’s share of it works.

Ownership also limits what you should do yourself. A leader who owns the outcome still has to hand most of the work to someone else, and our guide on how to delegate covers how to do that without losing the result.

Do Companies Ask Leaders to Develop People?

Eleven of the 19 do, and 13 name learning or curiosity. Amazon’s “Hire and Develop the Best” and McKinsey’s “develop one another through apprenticeship and mentoring” are the clearest. P&G puts the duty on everyone, calling it “the responsibility of all individuals to continually develop themselves and others.”

Toyota’s version is about skill. Under “Get better and better” it says “we take ownership to sharpen the skills of ourselves and each other.” Novartis lists “We make each other extraordinary” among its five behaviors, and JPMorgan Chase commits to “We hire, train and retain great, diverse employees.”

Curiosity is in the item names at five companies: Amazon’s “Learn and Be Curious”, Netflix’s Curiosity, the curious behavior at Coca-Cola, Novartis’s Curious and Toyota’s “Drive curiosity”. McKinsey asks staff to “embrace diverse perspectives with curiosity and respect.” Netflix defines the trait best: “you are as interested in other people’s ideas as your own.”

Your own development counts as well. If you want a formal qualification and the budget is tight, our list of the cheapest online MBA programs is a place to start the comparison.

How Long Should a List of Leadership Behaviors Be?

Short enough to remember and specific enough to act on. In our sample the median list has seven items and the range runs from 3 to 20, but length predicts little. Johnson & Johnson’s four responsibilities cover seven of our ten themes, while Google’s ten principles cover four of them.

The long lists buy coverage. Amazon’s 16 principles and JPMorgan Chase’s 20 both cover every theme we counted. Both read like operating manuals, and both would be hard to recite in an interview.

The short lists make a different bet. Microsoft has three values, Respect, Integrity and Accountability. IBM has three, starting with “Dedication to every client’s success.” Each item has to carry more weight, so each one is broader.

A list of values also usually sits beside a statement of purpose, and the two do different jobs. Our guide to the business mission statement covers the statement of where the company is going. The behavior list tells managers how to act on the way there.

Some of the most quoted rules never appear on a corporate page at all, because a founder wrote them down first. Our roundup of Elon Musk books shows one founder’s working rules as other writers have recorded them.

Which Leadership Behaviors Should You Copy?

If you are writing leadership behaviors for your own team, start with the baseline. Integrity, the customer and inclusion appear on most of the lists we read, so leaving one out will look like a gap. Then pick one or two of the less common ones, such as speed, frugality or candor, and mean them.

Write each one as an action. “Leaders start with the customer and work backwards” can be checked against a real week. So can Microsoft’s “We accept full responsibility for our decisions, actions, and results.” A single word like “excellence” cannot, unless you add a sentence saying what excellent work looks like.

Behavior lists sit in a long line of thinking about what leaders do as opposed to who they are. Our guide to leadership theories covers the behavioral studies that moved the field away from traits.

If you are interviewing at one of these companies, read its list before you go and prepare one real example for each principle the role is likely to test. The smaller decisions come after that, and our guide to interview outfits covers what to wear.

Then hold yourself to the list in the weeks when it is inconvenient. A principle is easy to follow on a good day. The bad days are when your team finds out whether you believed it.

How We Did This

We read the pages of 19 large companies on their own websites on 31 October 2026. We started from well-known employers that publish leadership principles, values or behaviors, and kept only companies whose page loaded and listed named items. We counted every named item, then coded each list against ten themes: customer, ownership, speed or bias for action, integrity or ethics, candor or feedback, developing people, learning or curiosity, frugality, inclusion and results. A theme counted when a principle’s name or its own description, including the supporting lines printed under it, asked for it plainly. A word used in passing about something else did not count. We excluded codes of conduct, mission statements and pages that would not load, which dropped 11 companies, among them Walmart, Unilever and Meta. The full dataset, with the wording behind every code, is available on request.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the most common leadership behaviors?

In our count of 19 large companies’ published lists, integrity is the most common, named by 16. The customer and inclusion follow at 14 each, then learning at 13. Frugality is the rarest of the ten themes we coded, named by 5 companies, with speed next at 8.

What are Amazon’s 16 Leadership Principles?

Customer Obsession, Ownership, Invent and Simplify, Are Right, A Lot, Learn and Be Curious, Hire and Develop the Best, Insist on the Highest Standards, Think Big, Bias for Action, Frugality, Earn Trust, Dive Deep, Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit, Deliver Results, Strive to be Earth’s Best Employer, and Success and Scale Bring Broad Responsibility.

How many leadership principles should a company have?

There is no fixed number. In our sample the median is seven and the range is 3 to 20. What matters more is whether each item describes an action someone could see, because a short list of clear behaviors covers more ground than a long list of single words.

The less common items on a company’s list, speed, frugality and candor among them, are the best guide to what its managers will be judged on, because so few employers write them down.