Whistleblowers of Corruption: The Heroes who expose 'The Spiral of Silent Complicity.'
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 whistleblowers, heroes of integrity, would have been saved from massive costs, and reputational damage had they listened.
“Whistleblowing is now globally accepted as an effective instrument for battling corruption (European Commission 2014, OECD 2012). Not only do whistleblowers speak up for the public interest, but their disclosures can prevent massive reputational and financial damage to their organizations if the wrongdoing is dealt with internally (Morrison and Milliken 2003). Corporate scandals involving Enron and Worldcom, and the BP Gulf disaster, demonstrate clearly the detrimental effect of silencing wrongdoing (see also Mansbach 2011).” Kenny et al 2019.
Introducing 'The Spiral of Silent Complicity.'
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').
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 knew 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.
If someone of integrity were to persist, the heavy artillery is brought into play: DARVO (see the brilliant work of Jennifer Freyd).
DARVO 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: abuses of the complaints system, subjected to false allegations, isolated, bullied, harassed, intimidated, slandered, libelled, defamed, dismissed, or combinations of the above and more.
In the meantime, those who witness the abuse of the person of integrity have their own fears of being harmed confirmed and amplified. The personal risk to them of speaking out is no longer imaginary, or something seen in the media; there is real and present danger. Their silence is even more assured.
When the wrongdoers observe the level of silent complicity, as the detriment is being imposed on the whistleblower, they feel further emboldened to seek the support from some among the silently complicit, who are then invited to give testimony against the “problem person.”
A trawl then begins to separate the loyal from the disloyal. The loyal are expected to demonstrate their loyalty by coming forward to give testimony against the problem person (they are never described as a whistleblower).
Faced with the choice of speaking out, and facing the same abuse, or giving false testimony against the whistleblower, some of the silently complicit choose to give false testimony.
Those who give false testimony are now part of the “in group,” and feel less exposed or threatened than previously. However, they have now crossed the line and are part of the wrongdoing: their silence is now guaranteed; they have to continue their silence in order to cover their own back.
Since the harm to the whistleblower goes unchallenged, the now larger number of wrongdoers sense that they can act with impunity, and are further emboldened.
The Spiral of Silent Complicity continues to worsen in the way just described, and since the increasing number of complicit wrongdoers have control of the levers of power they can misappropriate organisational resources to suppress dissent and cover-up their wrongdoing. Before long, more and more of the resources of the organisation are being used to silence those who could reveal the truth.
Eventually, someone with courage and integrity is prepared to stand-up and be counted, and the spiral collapses.
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, Eron, 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 whistleblowers 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 its whistleblowers. 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?
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, 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, (the NHS budget is £136bn).
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...) 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.
There are considerable health and mental health costs of treating whistleblowers.
Those with the courage and integrity to seek to stop fraud and corruption suffer huge psychological harm. Around 85% of whistleblowers subsequently suffer from severe anxiety, depression, destruction of their ability to trust others, agraphobic symptoms... The mental health damage done to whistleblowers is devastating in most cases. The full enormity of the costs are not known, but they are widely thought to be huge.
The overall cost to society of the retaliation against, and detriment imposed on, whistleblowers is huge. Wrongdoers in charge of organisations then engage in further wrongdoing by misappropriating organisational funds to defend themselves against the legal action that follows.
That does even more harm to society; all the legal costs are tax deductible. That means that money which could have been paid on tax to help the NHS, and education, and other public services, is spent on legal fees to prevent wrongdoers from being held to account. To compound the injustice even more the legal fees incurred by the hero of integrity, trying to seek redress, are NOT tax deductible.
Then there is the lost tax revenue, and societal contribution. Both are lost because so many whistleblowers are rendered unemployable. How much the state has to pay to support heroes of integrity is not known, but it is a huge amount.
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 queueing 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 whistleblowers from employment telling us that fraud, corruption, wrongdoing, and wilful misgovernance are even more widespread than we thought?
Are those who refuse to recruit whistleblowers preventing their own wrongdoing being exposed?
Is the prospect of having a staff member with those rare attributes, courage and integrity, just too dangerous?
Whether or not the massive scale of fraud and corruption is reduced depends on whistleblowers; they are the most effective front line (remember the 43% figure). If they are going to continue to risk everything, on our behalf, the heroes of integrity 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 support the Bill coming before Parliament to pass legislation to set up the Office of the Whistleblower.
It is in the best interest of the public to reduce the losses and damage done by fraud and corruption, and protect the people best positioned to prevent or expose it; whistleblowers.
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?
Prof Nigel MacLennan
