Our refounding cultural principles: What are they, and why did we create them?

When Headway was founded, we were just five people in a room with an ambitious idea: to build a new mental healthcare system that everyone could access. Our values, dubbed ‘cultural principles’ — crafted in those early days — became our north star, guiding us as we grew from a tiny startup into a 700+ person employee team.

These principles were more than words on a page. They were promises to each other about how we’d show up, work together, and keep patients and providers at the center of everything we do. And they’ve served us well. Incredibly, the values we created when Headway was just an idea in its infancy lasted us all the way to now.

But as we’ve grown, so too has the complexity of our mission and the challenges we face. Our ambition to make high-quality mental health care accessible to everyone is larger than ever, and it requires us to evolve not just how we work, but how we think and operate as a team. That’s why we recently revisited and refreshed our cultural principles — what we now call our “refounding cultural principles.”

Behind the scenes: the journey to our Refounding Cultural Principles

Updating our principles wasn’t a process we took lightly. After all, these values are the backbone of our culture. To get it right, we made sure it was a team effort:

• We surveyed. Hundreds of employees shared their thoughts on what makes Headway’s culture unique and where we could grow.
• We hosted focus groups. Across departments and levels, we hosted sessions with 70+ employees to hear their stories about how they see our values in action — and how they could better reflect the company we aspire to be.
• We synthesized and iterated. We tested early drafts, gathered more feedback, and refined until we felt we had it right. I personally led ~20 revisions across workshops, brainstorms, asynchronous reviews and more. 

Ultimately, we made the bold choice to go from 10 principles to six. It wasn’t easy — our original principles have a deep legacy — but this change reflects one of our new cultural tenets: Better, Faster, Fewer (BFF). It’s about focusing on what matters most so we can execute with clarity and speed.

What stayed, what changed 

Some of our principles, like Headway Owner: Go Where You Are Needed, have remained largely the same. These ideas are deeply embedded in who we are and continue to resonate. But others are new, reflecting the growth and ambition of a team tackling one of the hardest problems in healthcare.

Here are our six refounding cultural principles, and a high-level overview of what they mean:

(* indicates a net-new principle)

1. Headway owner: go where you are needed - Success demands we put the company’s mission above personal preferences or departmental silos.
2. Better, Faster, Fewer (BFF) * - We focus on the vital few, not the worthwhile many, while relentlessly pursuing speed and impact.
3. Strong Belief, Weakly Held (SBWH) - We lead with conviction, pressure-test ideas, and pivot quickly when better solutions emerge.
4. Relationship-obsessed - We are relentless in serving our customers—therapists, payers, and patients—and in supporting one another.
5. Feedback Uplifts Every Level (FUEL) * - We give and receive feedback as a gift, fueling growth and excellence at every turn.
6. The invisible sixth principle - This one, you’ll have to join Headway to discover.

You can read our cultural principles in full here.

Underlying it all: Our Olympic performance standard

Given the scope of our industry-reinventing mission, we need an “Olympic-level” team – every individual at Headway has been chosen for their unique talents and high caliber of performance. 

We know we are in constant competition to attract and retain top talent, and it’s up to us to provide an environment that challenges, rewards, and helps you grow. Our managers are expected to be open partners in helping their reports achieve their professional goals.

Being part of a high-performing team means learning from the best, contributing to collective wins, and growing personally and professionally. Like Olympians, we also value recovery as an essential part of sustained excellence — because bringing your best requires balance and care, too.

Why culture matters

At Headway, culture isn’t an afterthought; it’s how we make our mission possible. These principles are more than guidelines — they’re the scaffolding for how we operate, the commitments that keep us accountable, and the compass that ensures we’re building not just a company, but a movement. To everyone who contributed to this process: thank you. These principles are yours, and together, they will drive us forward.

And as we look toward the future, I’m more confident than ever that this incredible team—aligned around these principles — is what will make our generational mission a reality.

And if these principles resonate with you, consider joining our team.