The 9 Civil Service Behaviours: Complete Guide With Examples

Every Civil Service behaviour has a public definition and a private scoring reality. The definitions describe virtues. The descriptors panels score against describe actions at a grade level, and each behaviour has a characteristic trap: an answer that satisfies the definition while missing the marks entirely.

This guide covers all nine through that scoring lens: what each rewards, the trap inside it, and how the bar moves from EO to G7. Two facts frame it. You will face three to five of these, named in your advert, never all nine. And every behaviour is scored 1 to 7 against descriptors for the advertised grade, so calibration matters as much as the behaviour. If the scoring system is new to you, start with how Civil Service interviews are scored.

Seeing the Big Picture

Rewards awareness that changed something: a strategic driver, policy shift or wider priority that visibly altered what you or your team did. The trap is awareness held in mind, because knowing is not evidence. The mark is the decision the knowledge produced.

By grade, EO connects daily work to team objectives, HEO and SEO align activity to strategic drivers, and G7 brings a cross-government perspective and shapes strategy upward. Full worked example: Seeing the Big Picture.

Changing and Improving

Rewards a problem quantified, an improvement owned through implementation, a managed risk, and a resistor brought along. The trap is the suggestion trap: "I suggested it to my manager, who took it forward." The moment ownership leaves the story, so does the score, and from HEO up this is the single most common cap in the framework.

By grade, EO can score on suggesting and helping others adapt, HEO must identify and implement, SEO weighs impacts across users and takes managed risk, and G7 creates the conditions for others to improve. Full worked example: Changing and Improving.

Making Effective Decisions

Rewards a decision that was actually yours, options genuinely weighed with costs and risks, and the confidence to hold it including when unpopular. The trap is owning the research and outsourcing the decision. The panel wants "I decided, because".

By grade, EO decides within guidance and explains clearly, HEO and SEO make timely evidenced recommendations and difficult calls, and G7 decides on incomplete evidence and defends it. Full worked example: Making Effective Decisions.

Leadership

Rewards accountability that costs something, direction others followed, inclusion as concrete acts, and the most under-used vein: defending your own or your team's decisions under pressure. The trap is answering with management. Rotas, one-to-ones and coordination are administration, and no line reports are required for a 6.

By grade, EO scores on personal accountability and fairness, HEO and SEO on clear objectives with credit given and conflict managed, and G7 on defending decisions despite pressure. Full worked example: Leadership.

Communicating and Influencing

Rewards a position moved: someone who thought one thing and, because of how you made the case, did another. Channel chosen deliberately for the audience, message landed, resistance met with reasons. The trap is communication as output, because activity without a changed mind is unscoreable.

By grade, EO communicates clearly and handles difficult conversations, HEO and SEO choose styles for impact and communicate honestly under pressure, and G7 delivers difficult messages with sensitivity and monitors whether communication worked. Full worked example: Communicating and Influencing.

Working Together

Rewards a relationship you built across a gap, with friction or distance or distrust overcome, reciprocity in it, plus the wellbeing element almost nobody claims. The trap is the harmony trap: "we all pulled together" describes weather, and panels cannot score an atmosphere.

By grade, EO builds contacts beyond the team and asks for help, HEO and SEO build stakeholder partnerships and put wellbeing support in place, and G7 maintains a network that delivers shared objectives. Full worked example: Working Together.

Developing Self and Others

Rewards someone else's capability changed by you: a gap diagnosed, an intervention matched to it, independence engineered rather than dependence created. Your own development scores only when targeted and applied. The trap is the course list, which caps at a 3 from HEO up.

By grade, EO shares knowledge and meets development objectives, HEO and SEO coach and mentor and build team capability for future work, and G7 builds learning culture and equal development opportunity. Full worked example: Developing Self and Others.

Managing a Quality Service

Rewards the system fixed rather than the case handled: a pattern found behind an instance, prevention built into the process, a feedback loop established, quality weighed against cost. The trap is the one-case answer, because one satisfied customer leaves the service unchanged.

By grade, EO identifies common problems and proposes solutions, HEO and SEO develop and review the systems themselves, and G7 shapes whole services against best practice and regulatory requirements. Full worked example: Managing a Quality Service.

Delivering at Pace

Rewards a trade-off named and owned when demands competed: something cut, deferred or renegotiated deliberately, with quality protected where it mattered most. The trap is heroic hours, which from EO upward reads as the absence of a plan told proudly.

By grade, EO owns and organises its own workload, HEO makes the prioritisation call and renegotiates constraints, SEO re-plans a team rather than a person, and G7 builds pace into systems. Full worked example: Delivering at Pace.

The pattern across all nine

Read the nine traps together and they are one trap wearing nine costumes: evidence pitched one grade below the descriptors being scored. The suggestion trap is HEO evidence told at EO pitch. Heroic hours are EO evidence offered at HEO. The one-case answer is customer service offered where service management is being scored.

This is why generic "good answers" fail. The answer is not bad, it is mis-calibrated, and the panel's scoresheet has no line for effort at the wrong level.

The fix is the same for every behaviour. Read the descriptors at your advertised grade, build each example around a decision or difficulty, attach a because to every action, and quantify the result. The grade guides do this behaviour by behaviour (EO, HEO, SEO, G7), and the grade hubs show how it plays out across a whole interview (EO, HEO, SEO, G7).

Preparing your example bank

For a typical campaign assessing four behaviours, prepare five examples: one per advertised behaviour, each built for its descriptors, plus one flexible story that can serve two or three behaviours if a probe opens a gap.

Test each example against three questions. Whose decision was it? Yours, visibly. What was traded or difficult? Something, always. What changed, measurably? A number, ideally. An example failing any of the three needs restructuring or replacing before interview day.