Help for Heroes has been hugely successful. The public support those who were prepared to risk their lives for the public.
Not all heroes, who do huge public good, receive the public support they need; many have their lives ruined for doing something that few have the courage to do: they report organisations engaged in wrongdoing to the authorities, after having tried internally to correct the illegality, and are then subjected to life-ruining detriment.
Ironically the organisations that harm whistle-blowers, heroes of integrity, would have been saved from massive costs, and reputational damage had they listened.
Why whistleblowers matter
Whistleblowing is now globally accepted as an effective instrument for battling corruption. Not only do whistleblowers speak up for the public interest, but their disclosures can prevent massive reputational and financial damage to their organisations if the wrongdoing is dealt with internally. Corporate scandals involving Enron and Worldcom, and the BP Gulf disaster, demonstrate clearly the detrimental effect of silencing wrongdoing.
In an organisation, a few people, usually in authority/control over resources, decide that breaking the law is “justified”.
The processes that lead to fraud, corruption and wilful misgovernance are well-known; the same elements are explained in the fraud triangle (which are broadly similar to the, initial, often depicted, criminal investigation technique of examining “means, motive, and opportunity”).
How silence takes hold
Once the wrongdoing starts, those around the law breakers stay silent for fear of being isolated, rejected, ostracised, or subjected to detriment (losing their jobs, false accusations, reputational damage, etc.,). The wrongdoers take the silence of their colleagues as consent.
In time, another “justified need” to break the law presents itself to the wrongdoers. Having been emboldened, by the previously widespread silent consent, the subsequent illegalities are more brazen, and frequent.
That process of increasing normalisation of wrongdoing continues as progressively more serious illegality goes unchallenged by the group that are necessary for wrongdoing to continue: the silently complicit.
Those who are silently complicity have no fear of consequences for their silence; they have seen illegality, fraud and corruption played out in the media, and are aware that those who know about the wrongdoing yet say nothing are never penalised. Equally, they have seen case after case where those who spoke up about the wrongdoing have had their careers ended, their lives ruined, or even ended.
There is little or risk in staying quiet; participating in the spiral of silent complicity, and there is life-ruining risk in exposing the wrongdoing. Eventually someone with courage and integrity speaks up; expresses their legitimate concerns. They are then subjected to ‘gaslighting,’ the process used by wrongdoers to convince the victim or a witness that they are:
- Being over concerned petty details
- Misguided
- Lacking in understanding of the complexity of what is going on
- Deluded or mentally unstable
- Unaware that the future of the organisation is at stake
or any other psychological abuse to silence the dissent to the wrongdoing.
How whistle-blowers are silenced
If someone of integrity were to persist, the heavy artillery is brought into play:
DARVO (see the brilliant work of Jennifer Freyd)is the process where, when asked to address their wrongdoing, those engaged in illegality
- Deny everything, then
- Attack the person who has dared to challenge the wrongdoing, then
- Reverse the
- Victim and
- Offender
The person of integrity is then subjected to harm from the offender’s menu of punishment, including abuse of complaints systems, false allegations, isolation, bullying, harassment, intimidation, slander, libel, defamation, dismissal, or combinations of these tactics.
In the meantime, those who witness this treatment have their fears confirmed and amplified. The risk of speaking out is no longer abstract or confined to media reports. It becomes immediate and personal, reinforcing silence across the organisation.
As the detriment against the whistle-blower unfolds, wrongdoers become further emboldened. They begin to draw in members of the silently complicit, inviting them to give testimony against the so-called problem person. A process then emerges to separate the loyal from the disloyal, where loyalty is demonstrated through participation in the targeting of the whistle-blower.
Faced with the choice between speaking out and facing similar consequences, or aligning with the majority, some choose to give false testimony. In doing so, they move into the in group and feel temporarily protected. However, they have crossed a line and become part of the wrongdoing, ensuring their continued silence to protect themselves.
As the harm goes unchallenged, the number of complicit individuals grows. This expanding group begins to act with a sense of impunity, increasingly confident that their actions will not be questioned. Over time, organisational resources are redirected towards suppressing dissent and concealing wrongdoing.
The spiral continues until, eventually, someone with sufficient courage and integrity is willing to stand up and be counted, at which point the system begins to break down.
Real-world examples of complicity
What is the evidence for The Spiral of Silent Complicity. There are far too many cases to mention in just one article. Here are just some where very large numbers of people knew of the illegalities and became part of of the The Spiral of Silent Complicity.
Jimmy Savile, Greville Janner, Enron, Arthur Anderson, Polly Peck, BCCI, Worldcom, AIG, Cash for Questions, Cash for Gongs, Madoff Investments, Harvey Weinstein, Autonomy, Tesco… The list goes on and on. Tens of thousands of people were all silently complicit, and their silence enabled the illegalities to continue, and in some case, their silence actively facilitated the wrongdoers.
In warfare, heroes are those who take action in the face of extreme personal danger. In the campaign for integrity and the war against organisational corruption, fraud and wilful misgovernance, heroes of integrity are those who are prepared to risk personal and career ruination to uphold the law, for the benefit of all.
Despite the amazing public good that whistle-blowers do for society, few ever recover from the damage done to them, either in terms of their subsequent long-term unemployability, or the psychological harm.
Paulo Coelho made an insightful observation, which seems to explain, despite the good they have done, why society does not value it’s truth-tellers. It can be paraphrased as: “Why do people not like those who tell the truth? Because they make cowards of those who are silently complicit.”
What value do those with courage and integrity bring to society?
The cost of fraud and the value of truth-tellers
Fraud and corruption cost the UK, each year, around £137bn to £193bn. It will come as no surprise that there is such a wide range in the figures: Many organisations seek to cover-up the fraud for at least two self-interested reasons.
- The failures of the “leaders” of those organisations, to carry out their oversight duties, have made the fraud possible in a huge, but unknown number of cases. They are then liable for the consequences of their dereliction of duty, or negligence, gross misconduct, or the even more serious crime, reckless negligence.
- Many of the people responsible for the fraud, corruption or misgovernance are in charge of reporting it, and, needless to say, do not report their own crimes.
Let’s put the cost of fraud in perspective. The entire NHS, right across the UK, could be run for less than is lost in fraud each year.
How much fraud is uncovered because of the courageous few, who are prepared to act in the public interest?
Prepare to be shocked: Professional auditors uncover only 19% of fraud. Whistleblowers uncover more than twice that, at 43%.
Let’s put that in other language. People who are paid nothing to report fraud, indeed, who pay a very heavy price (job, earnings, pension, career, reputation, mental health, etc.) are more than twice as effective at uncovering fraud than those who are paid to do so.
Perhaps it is no surprise that those who are prepared to engage in systematic wrongdoing will engage in deceit to cover-up their illegality, and harm anyone they need to in order to deflect scrutiny away from their illegality. This behaviour has been well studied and is known as institutional betrayal. The harm it inflicts is ruinous.
The human and societal cost of retaliation
There are considerable health and mental health costs associated with whistle-blowing. Those with the courage and integrity to try to stop fraud and corruption often suffer severe psychological harm. Around 85% of whistleblowers go on to experience anxiety, depression, a breakdown in trust, and in some cases agoraphobic symptoms. The damage is, in many cases, long lasting and profound, even if the full scale of these costs is not precisely known.
The overall cost to society of the retaliation against truth-tellers is substantial. Wrongdoers in positions of authority often go further, misappropriating organisational funds to defend themselves against the legal challenges that follow. This compounds the harm, as those legal costs are tax deductible, meaning money that could have supported public services such as the NHS or education is instead used to shield wrongdoing.
The imbalance is stark. The legal costs incurred by those seeking redress are not tax deductible, placing an additional burden on individuals who have already paid a heavy personal price. Alongside this sits the loss of tax revenue and wider societal contribution, as many whistle-blowers are rendered unemployable.
The long-term cost to the state of supporting these individuals is not fully known, but it is widely understood to be significant.
What this says about our society
As an aside, what does it say about the level of integrity in a society if so many employers will not employ someone with the courage and integrity to report wrongdoing? The state and shareholders should be queuing up to thank, reward, and recognise those who have done such good; they should be receiving medals, at least. The opposite is the case.
Is the exclusion of whistle-blowers from employment telling us that fraud, corruption, wrongdoing, and wilful misgovernance are even more widespread than we thought? Are those who refuse to recruit whistle-blowers preventing their own wrongdoing being exposed? Is the prospect of having a staff member with those rare attributes, courage and integrity, just too dangerous? Do those who reject truth-tellers know what would be exposed?
Whether or not the massive scale of fraud and corruption is reduced depends on heroes of integrity; they are the most effective front line. If they are going to continue to risk everything, on our behalf, they need public support. You can support them, and increase the levels of integrity in our society by writing to your MP and asking them to call for an independent inquiry into organisational corruption and the destruction of truth-tellers.
It is in the best interest of the public to reduce the losses and damage done by fraud and corruption, and to protect the people best positioned to prevent or expose it. That could be you, or your loved ones, your children or grandchildren.
Do you want a society where those who stand up against wrongdoing are supported? Will you support the heroes of integrity?
Professor Nigel MacLennan runs the performance coaching practice PsyPerform.
