Grow Strong Leaders Podcast
I’m fascinated by what it takes for leaders to live their values consistently, especially when it’s hard.
On the Grow Strong Leaders Podcast, I have candid conversations with senior executives who are sustaining principled leadership inside complex organizations. We explore how leadership capability, organizational systems, and the everyday decisions reinforce values.
Our discussions also explore what gets tested when pressure rises—and the personal guardrails leaders rely on to stay aligned.
If you believe values should guide real decisions—not just appear on the wall—you'll feel right at home here.
Grow Strong Leaders Podcast
387: Who Wins Under Pressure?
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What happens when values collide with results and a difficult decision has to be made?
Earl Rattray spent more than three decades helping organizations answer that question in real time. Drawing on his experience leading global ethics and compliance efforts at Colgate-Palmolive, Earl shares why values only become meaningful when they're tested, how managers shape culture more than policies ever can, and why trust is the foundation of every healthy workplace.
You'll hear stories from Earl's visits to teams around the world, lessons learned from employees who challenged his assumptions, and the experience early in his career that revealed his own courage. Whether you're leading a team or influencing culture from any position, you'll come away thinking differently about speaking up, earning trust, and what it really means to do the right thing when the stakes are high.
Earl spent more than two decades as a senior ethics and compliance executive at Colgate-Palmolive, most recently serving as Senior Vice President of Global Ethics and Compliance. In that role, he built and led a compliance program operating across more than 200 countries and territories. He also advised C-Suite leaders and Board committees on institutional integrity, governance strategy, and emerging risk.
Under Earl’s leadership, the company was recognized by Ethisphere as one of the World’s Most Ethical Companies for 16 consecutive years — one of the most rigorous ethics distinctions in the corporate world. His mission is to help organizations build compliance programs and ethical cultures that hold up under real-world pressure. He believes that principled leadership is not a policy or a program. It is a daily practice, most visible in the moments when doing the right thing comes at a cost.
You'll discover
- Why values matter most under pressure
- How managers shape everyday workplace culture
- What creates genuine psychological safety
- Why trust is leadership's most valuable currency
- How courage grows when you speak up
Connect with Earl Rattray
Social Media
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/earl-rattray-32535189/
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